Cells of Release
Fiona Templeton
an
installation created in the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary in
Philadelphia, in collaboration with Amnesty International. One cell per day for 6 weeks, I installed
and wrote a poem on a continuous length of paper, weaving it in and out of an
entire block. Each cell also contained
materials for appeal for a current Amnesty case.
Prison
Sentences 1995
Photographs
by Bill Jacobson
Back to
www.fionatempleton.org
Order book at http://roofbooks.com
Link to www.Amnesty.org
I aim the pen to the telling again
and can't write those words
to read this close to the skin
I'm shaking this close to the moisture
the small hairs
the membrane
in the time of skin to skin holding
how
the very lip in the very fingers
held
this gap
this time
this blank
space of infinitesimal articulation
of the hand before the mark
between curved and straight
between form and spill
between agreement and will
between relation and thing
hand held as if to avowal
to signature
under pain of
under pain of sense
must turn to itself
inside returns sense
to itself
returns senses
eye to eye
speaks back
looks up
looks up
speaks out
message
passage
message
passage
message
passage
mouth into mouth
tongue to ear
handed back
from here at the innest of the body
without altering its course
at the boundary of the world
where the downwards
climbs
from here in hell
at the boundary of the body
where the inwards
replies
plies its way
reply your sense
of space
of touch
curves
cups
catches
whispers back
refrains