Prison Cemetery, Angola Farm.

Prison Cemetery, Angola Farm

No names but numbers
on plain white stones
at the edge of an endless
cotton field.
Their crimes--murder,
arson, rape--mean nothing
now that the grave is their cell,
the earth their keeper.

The other inmates
hate to pass this way,
especially at dusk, another day
of chopping weeds almost done.

They don't want
to be numbers, lie forever
in this miserable place,
truly alone, truly forgotten.

But neither did the inmates
who died before them,
worked the. same hard rows,
believed they were still men.

William Miller teaches African American literature and creative writing at York College of Pennsylvania. He has published four books of poetry and eleven books for children.