Saturday, September 28, 2013

Saturday Poetry: This Is Where That Teacher Got Shot

Time?  I don't have any.  So, another poem from Turn Left At the Dead Dog.  It's based on the 1992 murder of a beloved Brooklyn principal, Patrick Daly, who got shot in crossfire in Red Hook.
  

This, she told me
pointing with an acrylic nail
her lucky charms colliding like teenagers in love
is where that teacher died.
Some hoodlums shooting at each other.

You know, sometimes I think I seen them
coming out of the projects
They’re the ones laughing cause they never get caught.
But God knows
God always knows.
Rest that poor man’s soul.

Annie’s wand swipes the humid air
and makes those hoodlums their bullets the projects
and that early autumn day disappear for
that poor man, rushing back to school
with treats to surprise his kids when
the crimson buzz of a lonesome mosquito
bit him like it was personal
and he went down.

Look.
Go away she means.
I wish --
oh I know it’s a sin, a mortal sin --
but, I wish that their mothers had gotten rid of them
the minute their red-headed aunt didn’t come.

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