51�Թ�

Joe Turney transported Black prisoners, chained in a coffle, along the roads from Memphis to the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville.

Steve Coffle, owner of Helix Rotation Services in Atlanta, which cleans Airbnbs and other private rentals, said he told his contract employees he would try to help them out as the $80-a-gig jobs evaporated.

Betts subtly and deftly deploys the word “coffle” to connect life on the inside to the brutal history of slavery: “the corridors / before him are as long / as the Atlantic, each cell / a wave threatening / to coffle him,” wherein “coffle” refers to the practice of fastening slaves together by ropes or chains.

When the boy is suddenly sold, his mother walks alongside the coffle, weeping in anguish.

These newcomers patrol the coast like abolitionist avengers, superpowering their way through every coffle and barracoon they encounter.