Sign In

Benediction

Natasha Trethewey

Only subscribers may read this in its entirety. What follows is a free preview, truncated midway through.

I thought that when I saw my brother
walking through the gates of the prison,
he would look like a man entering

his life. And he did. He carried
a small bag, holding it away from his body
as if he would not touch it, or

that it weighed almost nothing.
The clothes he wore seemed to belong
to someone else, like hand-me-downs