CRIME Poem: Labyrinth of Lost Hope, by Keith Norris

Imposing series of three iron gates
Like a labyrinth of lost hope
At the entrance to
The Luther Luckett Correctional Complex
On this perfect spring day
I’m not sure if the gates,
Like the burgers at White Castle
Were designed to keep people in or out.

Assigned to go to the prison,
To interview an alleged car thief
For an insurance claim I was handling,
I was searched like a bag at the border,
I had no guns,
I had no knives,
I had no drugs,
Only my pen and legal pad
Which I wasn’t even sure was legal,
In this place where nothing is.

I was led to poorly lit concrete room,
With steel tables and benches
And wondered to myself,
If I was the one who would be questioned.
The prisoner was led in,
In an orange jump suit
He was probably happier to see,
The prison guard at 4 am bed check
Then he was to see me.

I wasn’t a cop,
I wasn’t a snitch,
I just wanted to know,
If he took the damn car.
It turns out that I didn’t need,
My pen or legal note pad
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you,” he said.
He pled the Fifth,
And it was a short conversation,
Which made no sense to me,
The claim was a civil matter,
Not a criminal one.
Like a fly in a sticky strip,
He was already in the place,
He was trying to avoid.

I left quietly through,
The series of iron gates
That opened and closed,
And moved traffic more efficiently,
Than the McAlpine Locks on the Ohio River
Moves barge traffic.

It is part of America
That, like the euthanization room
At the animal shelter,
No one wants to see.
As I exited the iron gates
I wondered if I had died,
I pondered my eternal fate,
As I studied the opening gate
Clicking like a roller coaster
At King’s Island,
Try as I might,
I didn’t see any pearls