fella sitting with us said:
I was walking in that park
and saw him
It was not ten minutes
before it went down
We saw the cop
he stopped us and asked us
if we’d seen
a drunk with a knife
cop wasn’t standing near us
so he couldn’t see my eyes
or smell my breath
the cop had something to focus on
he didn’t care about us
he had the call
and he was responding
(the good cop
on duty, cop with a gun
recon in the arboretum
serving the badge, “union”
brotherhood)
serving the call
to duty
get the bad guy
before he gets you
what could have been happening
inside that cop’s skull?
we said we hadn’t seen Jack
though we had
we all knew who he was
we didn’t want to get caught up
in his mess
We heard the shouts
we heard four shots
we read about Jack next day
it’s always next day
and way too late
this fella was still loaded
sitting with us, we had been talking
about “not yets”
when he intruded with his news
he was sitting next to me
and his smell was a shot
in the nostrils
I mean to tell you
I wanted to move
and would soon
he said almost proudly:
loaded on Percocets
and Lysol, he told us
“Glad it was him,
not me”
“Not yet,” I said
amazed at what must be
going on inside his skull