Cellblock 19 Bunk 3

Up again at three, Before the bellowing guards and shuffling feet, The fluorescent dawn still hours away… Hands too soft for hard labor Dig crusty scales of brief escape From the corners of watery eyes. Hope dims as focus returns. From my perch I survey A sea of black iron bunks. Shallow snores, dry coughs, wet farts. Their dreams like their tattoos: Crude and incomplete, childlike and menacing, As threadbare and tattered as our bedsheets, As pale and shadowy as the naked bulbs Ever-burning at each end of our Pink visqueen sky. Now I recognize this place. There is no justice here, No reform, no rehabilitation, no reward, Not even retribution. Just the labored slumber Of dry hopes and dreams of punctured flesh. I close my eyes again, awaiting escape.