Graywolf Lab

interdisciplinary conversations and new writing from Graywolf Press

At the End of the Day

by Justin Rovillos Monson

A rag-tag ball team we stand in a cipher huddle & high-five, promise to call each other's people once released into the world & to write letters & put money on our homiesl books & some cry & some laugh & some stay stone-faced with bangers in their waistbands & we jump with our feet kicked back in the air like the Wayans brothers in prison blues & we freeze-frame for the movie we're all in audition for American History X / Prison Song American Me /Shawshank Redemption South Central / Doin' Hard Time we don't freeze-frame for the movie we're all in audition for & we don't jump with our feet kicked back in the air like the Wayans brothers in prison blues & some don't stay stone-faced with bangers in their waistbands & some don't laugh & some don't cry & we don't put money on our homies' books & write letters, promise to call each other's people once released into the world & we don't huddle & high-five we don't stand in a cipher a rag-tag ball team At the end of the day truth is, we look away 
Justin Rovillos Monson is the author of American Inmate, forthcoming from Haymarket in February 2024, from which “At the End of the Day” is taken. Serving a sentence in the Michigan Department of Corrections, from which he hopes to be released in 2027, he is currently working on a hybrid memoir/collection of essays about his time incarcerated in Freeland, Michigan.