Manhattan’s Central Booking
Early Sunday morning
Our crew of ten from the Jefferson
Our crime
Serving alcohol after 4am.
Photos by an old black turnkey.
Empty our pockets.
Keys, wallets et al.
COs pushing us through a metal detector.
Our after-hour crew shoved in a holding cell
The clank of steel doors
Everyone else a black man
Not us.
Someone asks why we are there.
“After-hours club raid.”
We are welcome guests.
I have Kools
Matches too.
Out of the holding pen.
Interrogation
I say nothing.
Forms filled out in triplicate
Fingerprints.
Photos
Bad coffee
Someone getting a beating down the hallway.
Arrestees in and out.
I see two people I know from a Harlem after-hours
“When we getting out?”
We see the judge.
He cuts us loose.
We are released into the grey dawn.
Sort of free and I want a drink.
Elizabeth, my ex- shows up.
We go to her place.
Free to go anywhere outside the concrete wall of jail.