“Sheriff Offers Bold Plan To Jailed Prostitutes”
— Arizona Newspaper Headline, 1995
Seven times elected by the white and wealthy, Little Joe Arpaio
had the ladies of the street exactly where he always wanted them:
shackled at the ankle under his bold command picking and bagging
the roadside trash of the law abiding
Badge turned in, he rides now with the prickly legends
of the Great Southwest, still bragging how he forced the broken
to break stones, bullied the wild and beautiful into the harness
of the hypocrites speeding outside his prison gates
Even as his comely wards stoop and wink they know tomorrow
they will be free to sin again and leave behind a shrunken
sexless toad to forever slink behind the sagging tent dungeons
of his dirt dark desert jails
Frontier justice metes out happy endings in its own ways
The inmates will yet stand tall while he falls short as those
small of mind with big guns are wont to do at showdowns
In time the posses of history will chase and flush him out