He wrote his first poem on prison toilet paper

Dear Delyara, I teach creative writing in a state prison. Most students arrive saying they do not write and leave with pages hidden beneath their shirts because privacy is difficult to keep inside a locked place. Today, a man named Raymond handed me a poem written on toilet paper. He had used a dull pencil and pressed so hard that several words had torn through. The poem was about his daughter learning to ride a bicycle during the year he was sentenced. He has not seen her in eleven years. He asked whether the poem was good. I began explaining the imagery, then stopped because he was not asking about technique. He wanted to know whether the love inside it had survived the paper. I told him yes. He folded the poem into a square smaller than a postage stamp and placed it in the envelope he is permitted to mail. Before class ended, he asked me how many stamps regret requires. I said one. The envelope may be returned. His daughter may never open it. Still, tonight, somewhere inside the prison mail system, a father’s voice is traveling toward a woman who may only remember him from the day he let go of the bicycle seat.