951: State Prison 5 p.m.

[exceptindreams]

"State Prison"
Thomas G. Nickens

The count bell rings

Cell doors bang shut

Shouts of anger
        echo back
        from some dark gut

But one man takes an extra
        tick of time
        to close his steel door
        on himself
        without a sound

and after count

an old man walks the tier
        snapping his fingers like dry twigs
        to a beat he remembers
        from days when he was
        forty years younger
                                      and
twenty years freer