Time seemed to have stopped
as I clung to cold steel bars.
It felt like I was held in chains
in the Inquisition’s private hell.
Sleep was not a possibility,
and my shoulder still hurts
from a thwack by an angry cop
who hated me for marching
with “Veterans For Peace.”
I couldn’t get the stink of shit
out of my nose from a toilet
that wouldn’t flush, while I waited
for Lenny, my college classmate,
an ACLU lawyer, to get me out.

– Milton P. Ehrlich