The Road to Meet You: Tomoka Correctional Institution

Brother, the highway to meet you

is full of gaping holes, the broken bodies

of green and white bottles, soiled diapers,

plastic bags filling with wind.

The heaviness of semis bear down

on my car’s metal body.

I swerve in and out of traffic to avoid them

but never pass. For miles and miles

the road stretches and bleeds.

In the McDonald’s where I stop for coffee,

every brown body looks me in the eyes:

the white-haired grandmother

when I move aside so she can pass,

the cashier when I smile and take my coffee.

Her hands linger like the feelers of an insect.

In the parking lot I open the window

to smell the pine air mix with the scent

of wet earth. A hungry tongue of hot steam

hovers across the asphalt.

Everyone knows just up the road the prison sits waiting

to swallow every brown body whole.