Returning to my cell after a state breakfast
Of watery hot wheat cereal (that reminds me
Of my free-life wall paper-pasting days),
Stony cold biscuits, and salty beef bouillon gravy,
I recline on my bunk to let the heaviness settle
Before it's time to head off to my job detail.
Four words form inside my head:
I'm never going home.
My soul shudders with the weight of truth which tightens my heart to squeeze tears behind closed lids.
A cellmate is stirring, and the TV isn't on,
So I can't cry openly
Pretending that amped-up Ty has just cued
The deserving family to chant, "Bus driver, move that bus!"
Rolling to face the colorless concrete block wall,
I wad the hem of my sheet onto eye ducts
To silently absorb the grievous overflow.
I'm
Never
Going
Home;
I'm never going to sleep on a real-world bed
Cuddled with grandkids;
I'm never going to Mardi Gras;
I'm never going to swim in a salty ocean
Or taste kumquats;
I'm never going to hike the Appalachian Trail;
I'm
Never
Going
To.
Heaving pathetically I mourn my passing
For a few selfish seconds.
Time's up. Rise and shine.
Play the hand I'm dealt
(after I hide my soaked sheet corner under the pillow).
I certainly am not the first to be forever punished
for unjust cause,
and I certainly will not be the last.
With head down, armed with soap dish and face cloth,
I destroy the evidence
At the porcelain sink down the hall.
No one pries. It's early.
We all look weirded-out.
Patricia Prewitt
July 28, 2010
