Spark
Let's workshop this bitch!
Spark
999625 might have
waived off the warden’s
humane-macabre Marlboro
had he thought pity-
exacting self-mutilation
stood a chance to save him
from the Tejano chair.
But as early as under
the central-booking
blanket, coarse wool,
unequivocal it was
that each cogwheel
(finger-printer, guard,
wellness-checker too)—
however still faraway
from that casehardened
“Heard it all before,
buddy”—could at best
merely reverse the route
of empathy: “Just
doin’ my job, man.”
*“Spark” originally appeared in Cholla Needles (2022)