Ten Minutes Before They Released Me from Orleans Parish Prison

I was moved
to a holding cell 
beyond the racket

of the other cages
where a man
rock-bottom with the floor

sat working his tongue
moving the blood from his lip
down his throat.

His eyes seemed to crawl
toward a kind 
of mercy in the wall.

But it was
the latex gloves tied
& filled with days of his waste

that sank
my head into my hands
for our mothers

who’d cared for us
& our stench
this way. 

She’d have held him,
but I couldn’t
stomach much more

than the cruelty of looking
away — ashamed
that we, broken but still our own,

were desperate
for what I believed decent — 
to be left alone.