Poem from the 2025 Morton Marcus Winner, Joyce Victor

Phillip’s Celebration
by Joyce Victor

The guests are five men
in a row, each alone
in a cell with a slab bed,
a lidless toilet,
no windows
but always
light from fluorescents:
solitary confinement in prison.

Could be night or day
they keep in touch
through the heating pipes.
What’s up? Oh, nothing much.

They know the slow of endless time.

Phillip’s being moved
to Clayton Men’s Max.
He, a former Satanist
with devil horns tattooed
on his temples, but converted
by Timothy--next cell over
and on death row--
to the King James Bible.

Before Phil gets taken, the education
lady crosses the barbed wire yard,
and waits for Warden Gomez’s
permission for caramel popcorn.

She pushes the sticky kernels
through each door’s narrow slot
to receiving hands.
The men eat like eager mice.
No, like hungry ghosts.
Please give me more.
I haven’t tasted this in years.

When it’s time to talk about Phillip,
each shouts out, in turn,
into the hallway--
how Phillip gave away
his dinner tray

to a hungry neighbor;
the pretty women he drew
on his napkins
--fished to them
under their doors with dental floss;
the Johnny Cash he
sang to them through the pipes.

Quiet for a moment. Perhaps
Phillip takes in he has worth.
That this is goodbye from his family.

Loudly, he lifts his voice,
This is the best party I ever had.