Hurricanes Don't Worry: Poems from Men in the Harris County Jail

No Program Television

Shon Jones

I was in a single man cell when Harvey hit.
We had no running water for days,
no AC to where the floor
was just wet all day from the lack of
air circulation and ventilation.
We saw the same officers 4 or 5 days
straight all day because they couldn’t
go home. The hardest part was being caged
in those conditions, not knowing if
my son was okay. Not knowing if my
mother made it safely home from work –
if she made it to my stepfather who had
cancer at the time, who was home
with his 90-something-year-old grandmother.
The TV was on. News for a week straight.
No program television.
All coverage of the flood.