Cell block #1: On a school trip.
@ Eastern State Penitentiary, where “incarceration would lead to penitence and reformation.”
through a peephole
in the thick wooden door
I see a slatted metal bed frame
a lopsided dresser missing
the top drawer
plaster crumbles
into a heap on the floor
the smell of mildew
dust suspended
a lamp dangles
from a twisted wire
the only light
sneaking through a slit
in the ceiling
that hovers so low
Christine Taylor, a multiracial English teacher and librarian, resides in her hometown Plainfield, New Jersey. She serves as a reader and contributing editor at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. Her work appears in Modern Haiku, apt, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Rumpus, and The Paterson Literary Review among others. She can be found at www.christinetayloronline.com