Austin Alexis

SOMEWHERE IN FLORIDA

While my hair is being parted,
cut to a respectable length,
police storm in.
They mean business
disrupting this business
because they didn't see a license,
asserting their ability to read
the letter of the law.


Austin reads "Somewhere in Florida":



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Austin confesses: 'Somewhere in Florida' was inspired by hearing a radio announcer on WBAI-Radio mention the incident that is dramatized in the poem. The news story coalesced with thoughts I already had about police misconduct and about portraying "criminal" behavior in poetry.


AUSTIN ALEXIS is the author of Privacy Issues (Lotus Press/Wayne State University Press) and has published in the anthologies Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and about the Police, Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and the Homeless and American Society: What Poets See.