the story goes an innocent left his hand print 
on the cell wall before being sentenced to hang an hour later 

on the way back to the car we debate
whether or not the hand print on the cell wall
was real. a marking of dirt. five fingers.
palm. much bigger than my own. father hand.
bear paw. root system. anchor ache icon.
large enough to cup a toad or a frog.
large enough to grip a wrist tight.
the jail in jim thorpe is open for tours
& we followed our guide like curtain ghosts
through the thick walls of the jail while
she explained that each door is made
of two hunks of oak & sheet of iron. 
we debated if the hand print was real
& i say it must have been at some point 
that there must have been at the very least
one hand print that wouldn't go away
but the one now i don't seem to be able
to believe. the print is circled 
in green. the guide says there were
once forensic tests that proved
there's no DNA on the hand. just dirt.
just dirt. i think about how 
solid a motion placing
a hand on a wall is & how 
if it were me 
becoming a ghost 
that i might be tempted to place
hand print all over the cell--
that i might paint stand on my bed
& press a hand to the ceiling.
we walk in & out of stone rooms.
we wander through a dungeon where
bodies lived in black murk. we peered
through a one-way mirror & spied 
on the emptiness. the fake gallows 
in the center room stood
like a tall stagnant monster &
our tour group stared up at 
the fake nooses they proved.
a noose should
snap your neck as you fall by 
the tour guide tells us they 
didn't always work.
there is writhing here on a tour
i take with a group of friends
in a humid august day where
there's a hoard of trees outside waiting 
to speak with their insects.
i am a boy leaning on an iron railing
& there are hands scurrying across
the walls like spiders 
made of dirt.