33rd Street Jail, Orlando, Florida

33rd Street Jail, Orlando, Florida

I visited the dread there once.
Where smooth walls, which look like child’s blocks,
forget nothing. All the anger, fear, rage remain,
in images tattooed to my skin.
Where there is obedient payback - for all our wrongs.
Outside palm trees sway in easy freedom
while we avoid slitted eyes measuring with a wolf’s sly expertise, our worth. Because animal’s know
a certain hierarchy. Outfitted in orange,
blue, red coveralls; we stand in lines
signifying our rank and station.
Careful not to expose soft necks to sharpened shivs,
slashing out to revenge any supposed disrespect.
Silence holds you in confinement for the present.
Where an angry buzz invades my thoughts,
like the cry of trapped insects
caught forever between windowpane and screen.
No harsh words, especially the f—word,
may be uttered in cement cells of punishment.
Where we are monitored leading meatless lives
without coffee — because they say it will make us less vicious. During visits, no touching others who may come
and go, or we lose privileges.
Brief respites in a TV room.
Separate screens, one for Whites, one for Blacks,
in a blind society programmed to view racial difference
as a warrant or summons for bad behavior.
Leaving us with taped visions, as youth dries on our skin.
Heat from bodies never destroyed
only transferred by search and seizure.
The energy of entropy diminished by a closed system,
expiring like the last drop out of a bottle.
Which drips onto floors polished by us to shine;
like patent leather shoes of guards who inflict authority along with boredom in desperate minutes which become captive days.
No mirrors here to map vacant smiles
when even jailers are jealous of our dreams.
Where every vision of tomorrow promises some release.
I visited the dread there again.
Where I remember nothing and forget nothing.