I was driving to the prison
to see him, the underground lair
of fluorescent oxbows and switchbacks, lost
tributaries and dead-ends, Sanitation,
Electrical, Emergency Exit,
Death Row, Psychiatric Wing, Holding Cell,
all monitored by cameras and controlled
steel doors that open and close as I drive
deeper into the complex. Execution
by Lethal Injection on the left,
Murderers, Sex Crimes on the left,
Arsonists, Drug Traffickers, Scam Artists,
Tax Evaders, Meth Freaks, Petty Freaks all
on the left, and then, when it seems I will
never surface, Drunkards, Na'er-do-wells,
Pan Handlers, Misbegotten, Those Who
Lack Grace. I park the car and push through
the steel door and follow the corridors,
the same pattern, Derelicts to the left,
the Deranged, the Mindless, the Impulsive,
the Compulsive Confessors of Dark Secrets,
until the hall narrows to men and women
splayed naked by their own choice -- women sleek
as harbor seals, tumescent men sprinkled
with glittery stars, fussing at their self-imposed
scars like chimpanzees scouring their flesh.
The last door opens to a room of tattooed
men and women bound by chains scraping the floor.
Black and white slides projected on the far wall
show a splay-toed boy in a potato field,
then talking to a mynah bird, then
fishing in a rowboat. A one-eyed Brutus
shouts "Hey Don, there's someone here to see you"
and then a man shuffles forward, the same
silent man, the same oval name patch stitched
to his green shirt, the same pencil planted
behind his ear. "I see you made it," he says,
by which we both know we can go no farther.
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