Iron shackles to broken wrists,
cold, wet stone:
chains clank in the night.

Fire flickers on sconces
lining corridor walls.

Footsteps echo
down the hall;
guards speak of
a new prisoner's arrival--

Someone important, wise:
confusion abounds at
this stranger's fate.

What time shall he arrive this eve?
Where will he be taken?
This place was not built for
political prisoners.

The rest of us forgotten:
the small, shared meal lost;
hunger gnarls within.
Moans -- loved food is wasted.