The Cleanup

He stank, for it was hot and he was dead.

The C.O. talked it over with his guys.

“I’m not going down for this alone,”^[1] he said.

The prisoner had no rights so none were read

before they started. If he’d told no lies

there wouldn’t be this stink from him being dead.

Perhaps he dreamed of dying old in bed,

not as a pulpy, shimmering heap of flies.

“I’m not going down for this,” the C.O. said.

They mopped up all the flesh and blood he’d shed

and stored him in the shower packed with ice

but still he stank and went on being dead.

They had to make him up to look less dead.

They plugged in an I.V. and closed his eyes.

“I’m not going down alone,” the C.O. said.

They laid him on a crisp new stretcher-bed

and posed him so you might not recognize

the stench as death, stink of the murdered dead.

“We’re not going down for this,” the C.O said.

Patrick Daly