ISSUE: Spring 2002
Only three days later I realized the chalk outline was gone,
faded, no doubt, in the rains
that flushed the gutters clean, & now a steady line of haze
as the sun walks its beat. There were photographers,
yes, a few nights back:
flashbulbs burping light which I could imagine—
bursts of brilliance through the window shade.
The next morning: yellow
gift wrap of police tape & talk at the bus stops:
how could I explain what I saw?
I stood silent as in a precinct
somewhere downtown, all my answers were reread
& reports were written.
I hadn’t seen a thing,
hadn’t heard a thing until—there isn’t a word to describe it,
no metaphor apt enough—
the body hit the sidewalk before me & bounced slightly
as if pushing the soul free from whatever binding holds it firm.
A little sentence of blood whispered from his mouth.
Where were his wings?
If the detectives ever found a note or
a motive, I don’t know—my answers
must have been acceptable, but they weren’t all I knew;
even I had flinched in the hot breath of an approaching subway.
But I couldn’t say that as the black wand of the pen
wobbled above the officer’s pad, so I said what I said—
I was just walking, minding my own business—
& I’m sticking to it.
