Dog Run
The gate slams behind you. To get
from the parking lot into the prison
you walk the dog run, a half-mile
of concrete enclosed in a parenthesis
of fences past a snatch of cop-killer
rap radio, shirtless convicts in sweat pants
playing basketball or jonesing
on the dorm porch. Some stare at you;
to others, you do not exist, you
in your tropical print dress and
Jackie-O shades. You are guilty
of freedom; civilization is a thin
veneer here, rubbed in by uniforms,
towers, guns. Sometimes the longing
to be free gets snagged on razor wire,
like a scrap of white T-shirt. You walk
silent and staring straight ahead
to the end of the dog run, where
you flash your ID and check out
your alarm, which you will hit
if there’s trouble. Inside, the PA system’s
omniscient prison narrator
announces who will do what and when
but you are hearing misery’s persistent whisper
turn into a low collective moan, a rumble
that comes from the belly of the earth,
the sound a mother would make
if she were the earth.
