The Prisoners

Steel doors – guillotine gates –

of the doorless house closed massively.

We were locked in with loss.

Guards frisked us, marked our wrists,

then let us into the drab Rec Hall –

splotched green walls, high windows barred –

where the dispossessed awaited us.

Hands intimate with knife and pistol,

hands that had cruelly grasped and throttled

clasped ours in welcome. I sensed the plea

of men denied: Believe us human

like yourselves, who but for Grace…

We shared reprieving Hidden Words

revealed by the Godlike imprisoned

One, whose crime was truth.

And I read poems I hoped were true.

It's like you been there, brother, been there,

the scarred young lifer said.