How new this is,
how odd,
how interesting.

I can feel
the eyes
seeking to understand,
deciding that it doesn't matter,
giving me what passes
for my due
regardless.

I make that half-mile
journey on my handicapped
legs because I want to,
because I need to.

It’s part of what passes for respect
around here.

I walk for myself,
for them who live behind
those gates, those fences,
so as to assist in the possibility
of mending the punitive
as well as the personal;
patching holes.

Yet, their eyes burn.

It’s not polite to stare,
so I’ll stop.

It’s their house,
this 1 House,
this community,
of convicts, inmates,
offenders...
semantics,
synonyms,
systems of...
reform,
rebirth,
rehabilitations sought,
as yet unfound.

We,
they and I,
are seekers,
still.

Thus the march
continues.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020