Art Curriculum, El Paso Detention Center

Grey Held

First choose the palette for drawing
on blank newsprint: Desert Brown

crayon, plain old black, the beige
that used to be called Flesh. Start

with the head: circle or no circle.
Then arms. Straight lines for boys.

For girls, wide open. Tell them
the flare of hair: optional. Tell them

make the eyes like two doors slightly
open. Note to self: learn to say

have fun in Spanish. Diviértete 
mi amigo. Help Carlos hold it 

together. Do not mention his
mother. She’s in another

detention center. Have Jesús
help his little brother, who’s only

got one arm. Tell them the way
to unlearn fear is undocumented.

Remind them the sky is not
nothing. remind them that if all

the Mango Tango crayon is gone,
any color can conjure up the sun.

Grey Held is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing and the 2019 Future Cycle Poetry Book Prize Winner. Three books of his poetry have been published: Two-Star General (BrickRoad Poetry Press, 2012), Spilled Milk (WordPress, 2013), and WORKaDAY (FutureCycle Press, 2019). Grey is a literary activist, who through civic involvement connects contemporary poets with wider audiences.