Fresh out of law school
She expected Death Row to swallow her up. She'd envisioned squadrons
Of black-booted gestapos, sirens whirling Madly, mace, the stun guns and chains.
She remembers the stories.
The internal investigations.
The suspensions, firings and arrests. How she'd dutifully filed the
Class action lawsuits
The real-to-reel script of videotapes and
Of Black and Latino headprints left Against the walls
How the guards wrote KKK
With their blood.
The click is a bomb exploding
As she pops open her brown briefcase. Adjusts her smart lawyer's suit. Straightens clear framed glasses.
Her subject is led in. Gleaming handcuffs, A marvelous Black male specimen.
Her aqua blue eyes flame wildly.
Wheel vertiginously over
His shiny caramel colored skin,
The chiseled black marble bulging through A too-tight gray prison jumpsuit.
She sweats, squints, licks red lips,
Flicks back long blond tresses. Sentences veer off, slow words slur.
He has innocent brown puppy eyes. Heavy steel doors slam open to a
A swarm of cinematic images she sees The gentle Black giant in The Green Mile. Nude Black men on Oz.
A daring escape. Show Time.
Zulu warriors. Rape.
Patty Hearst. Fake abductions. Orgasms.
And she begins to resent all the lies.
The condescending law school professors. An oppressive warden for a father. Suddenly violations of his
Civil rights is not really why
She's here
It's to break loose from the chains.