“we Got A Runner! ” Poem by Matthew Coombe

When the hammer strikes the head of the chisel
I imagine the muffled shot ringing out down the

cellblock. I picture myself squatting, waiting, listening
for the guards’ heavy horizontal footfalls on the steel

gangway just the other side of these vertical bars. And
only when I am certain that the sound has not pierced

the uncertainty of their poker hands do I deliver the
second blow and wonder how to breach the steel laced

deep within this concrete. But the purpose of today is
not to evade the probing searchlights of the towers, or to

defeat the perimeter fence, not to make it to the border
before the dogs taste my scent. Today is simply the day

to remove these tiles, to force this blade, to watch the fractured
shards fall into the tub. Such a day could even be my season

in hell, where each created space is instantly filled by
another, appearing exactly in its place.