Prisoner

Her favorite stars and prison bars
have all aligned and look just like
a smile. She stands on paper ankles
that can’t help but sway and today
she knows the world can become
a talking head that calls to all
the galaxies and skies.

Working for copper that they churn out
for a loss to spite the boss.
The taste of her own blood is so familiar.
They kill rabbits with their bare hands
and save them for later. She’s an expert
at keeping it quiet when food is forbidden.

Messages from the past still haunt
the furniture sometimes simply carved
into a shelf, or if it’s not a message
than a long forgotten stash of something
not allowed. She finds a scroll of ancient
weed from probably the 90s embedded
in the frame of the rec room couch,
and she smokes it with her friends in the blind
spot in the yard and writing in the wrappings
warns the reader that they’re never getting out.