There Are Over One Hundred Fifty Thousand Florida Prisoners Poem by James McLain

Does this number boggle your mind?
If not,
there is obviously something wrong with you.
Having practically no access to medical treatment!
I gauge that
by the number of human beings
that die each year from preventable deaths.
We the citizens of Florida,
hear nothing in the newspapers or news about them.
Yet we are bombarded by tv. commercials,
about what you can do to save a pet that will be
put to death,
or help some small child get safe drinking water.
You would no more
trust them with your own child,
so why would you trust them with someone else's?
Monday through Thursday
you can see the state road yellow, D.O.T. truck
filled mostly with black inmate worker's
working on the side
of Florida's roads, where in my youth I once did.
Black inmate's as a rule don't runaway.
Those with redneck mentalities call it escape.
Obviously these men,
can be trusted to work in our communities, but once
one does runaway, he is then considered armed
and dangerous, when
if one can be initially trusted to work in our communities
why is he locked up all?