This is the Nice VersioN

My feet are crumpled like lilies

bruised purple. Blue tracery of veins

on skin so white I could be a piquant

French cheese. Never wore

pretty girl shoes only orthopedic

galoshes even at my wedding.

It is hard to stand in prison crocs

made flat tire black as easily worn

out like cardboard shoes in other

eastern prison camps.

Nerves in my feet grind like stripped

gears against my tarsals.

I must be lying the Sgt. brays in my face. The

tattered orthopaedic shoes I am wearing clearly

came from somewhere else. A not prison place.

Yet,

I've not been

elsewhere in

a not

prison

for

a quarter of

a century.

Here is a list of what is happening:

I'm liar a liar a liar aliarliarliar

screamed in my face by

void women

avoid women

who demand I surrender these liar

shoes or I will go in solitary

My friends stand open mouth stunned

having never seen me crippled sans

shoes or observed in person

as avoid women in grey and black shirts

circle like wolves until the shoes come

off and I limp

a

wounded

doe

no

fleet

feet

Afterward the large round and tall Lt.

looms over me liar a liar in Italian

serenades spew over me.

We are standing in the

clinic hallway. An ultimatum for

my crushed feet bathed in my tears

humiliation

He barks be grateful

This is the nice version.