Giovanni is not in poetry class today.
He’s in lock-up, chants my wayward 
Greek chorus, and for a moment
he’s conjured up out of the hole, 
standing there in his orange sweats, 
all seventeen years, six and a half feet of him.
Cock-eyed grin, incandescent globe of hair,
hands dangling like shoes
tossed over a telephone wire.
Funny how the freedom riders
always gallop full-steam into lock-up.
The ones whose poetry we love,
who can turn the sky into rainbow trout,
serve it up with a hot sauce of snow.
Funny how his presence tastes more like wind 
than a room with no mattress 
or windows.
More like a gust of laughter
so sweet and clear, even the guards
close their eyes to hear.