How Prisoners Walk Poem by michael hogan

Some confidently as if they had a place to go,
others in companionable pairs;
some tentative, bewildered by their fate.
There is, of course, no jogging on the track
as it circles beneath barbed guard towers.
Still, when the buzzer sounds for exercise hour
they all troop out from the cells no matter how inclement the weather.
It is their only chance to see one tiny rectangle of sky.
No matter how they begin or what pace they keep
they all move in the same direction: counterclockwise
as if to turn back time.
Hoping they can walk far enough
to the point where what brought them here
never happened.