＃１４

The early P.M. heat brought a drunken clairvoyance to the west-wing inmates: cells swelling and contracting with an unfelt breeze, guarding charred air thick as syrup and incarcerated with us . . . you learned not to hope for reprieve. Each man blessedly mute for once — even the Aryans & Norteños — all sharing the same violent, syncopated headache that comprised our call to prayer. The ache grew and grew in speed and hate so that you cried out wordlessly for death, entombed in sweat and spittle, horrid thick junkie veins choked out by mosquitos . . you were *close* now . . . ! !   
until, at last, the penitentiary walls dissolved and left you floating ‘top the witchgrass and sugarcane — quiet, cradled by the s.w. eddies sweeping up from the Gulf. Easy, now. Everything undone. Hear the quail choir wip-wip-wip beneath you, rustling for horseflies, well-fed. Nearby, a cypress bayou sodden with butterscotch rays: “GATER COUNTRY”, all caps, rust leering through a thicket of bergamot. Space here for a family. Good soil, yeah. Stay here, mother whispers, as long as you possibly can . . . whacked out by humidity and regret in a blissful catatonia the acidfreaks blushed to dream of.