Washing Off Jail DIrt

It takes more than one shower to lose the lingering light miasma of jail, and on release, after two cheeseburgers and a bus ride, I plunged into the Gulf of Mexico, splashing and scrubbing, floating in the salt water on my back and watching the few light clouds soaring in the sky. I took stock, I made vows. Me and the sea. A lone dolphin sounded and a frigate bird drifted on a several hundred mile day. I grit the sand through the skin of my feet, no longer in slides on county concrete. The newspapers had stacked up, days of them, scattered in a Gaussian distribution around a spot near the stoop, with colorful overdue subscription notices in the plastic sleeves. Yesterdays bad news, lightly spattered with dried dirt splashed on by the rain I'd missed but damp from long days of neglect.