Southern Literary Journals Tend to Reject this Poem.

What No One Talks About
Inspired (specifically) by the story of John Thompson, exonerated from death row after spending over 15 years there on an erroneous murder charge, a charge (officially) stemming from prosecutorial misconduct.
- New Orleans, 2003

in terms of exoneration
is the old guard’s dedication
to the ruination, crucification,
gas-‘em-‘till-we-break-‘em technique
of removing black men
from sunlit streets to solitary
confinement keeps
the maximum security myth
striking deep, digging
dollars for bodies,
the new slave trade –
we’ll teach these niggers
how to behave.