A Postmodern Two-Step

Some people say prison is the country

where life is cheaper than anywhere else;

you wouldn’t think that watching us take leave,

our caravan three deep and black against

the wine-dark asphalt, and two of three

are nothing but escorts: four uniformed

shotguns (off safety) leading and flanking

our coffle, all intent to keep us here,

and not wherever shackles and cuffs run

in this dead of morning, less than fifty miles

from where Nat Turner dug a hole and lay

for weeks. Virginia, something noose-like then

and some say still, except for all the shit

we did to land in this here hull and cul-

de-sac. The guard, he say “die, but don’t run”

when one of us begin to cough his lung

up in sleep. And this is ruin. Damn these chains,

this awkward dance I do with this van. Two-step,

my body swaying back and forth, my head

a pendulum that’s rocked by the wild riffs

of the dudes I’m riding with: them white folks know

you ain’t god body, what you commune wine

and bread? Where you from son? Red lines?

To what Onion? My eyes two caskets though,

so the voices are sheets of sound. Our van as dark

inside as out, and all the bodies black

and voices black too and I tell my god

if you have ears for this one, know I want

no part of it, no Onions and no tears.

I tell no one, and cry my dirge.

                                                        This place,

the cracked and scratching vinyl seats, the loud

loud talk of murder this and blanket fear

around the rest, is where I’m most at home,

but it’s beyond where prayers reach, a point

something like purgatory. I lean back

and drift in sleep as someone says, his voice

all hoarse and jacked, all broken songbird-like

all revolutions end with a L-note.