pogo

The afternoon sun bakes more than the yellow weeds and red clay on the Oak hills in Sacramento County. The falling sun boils asphalt on the dead-end streets of Folsom. Past the square buildings of the white-heat town, the prison smolders; where in the only shade, hunkered men sizzle and sweat, smoke and spit, doze and snore. No one asks for the sun, it just comes, wandering over the Sierras following an ancient road. Returning each day to roast the livers, dehydrate the kidneys, boil the brains of men who cannot fly away to Cancun or Stockholm. Of course, they are not aware their brains are being bubbled; what little gray matter puberty left behind was long ago shoved blind-folded to the wall by booze, smoke and sterile needles filled with promises of Syphilitic sex.