Small Crimes

I.

Fingertips along the window sill

the phone rings next door

a fleeting moon
october wind

a sigh from the tussled bed
moon shadows reveal

the scene
so little blood

like she was asleep all the time
they'll later say

the train leaves at midnight
I bought some Camel's, a coke

I have to hurry
get my ass aboard



II.

Fine hair waves
like cillia

they appear somewhat
asparagus like

cry when they are cut
bleed when they are skinned

we do not understand
their language

but they grow like weeds
our roses are threatened!

Round Up won't work

if only they'd be quiet
when we slice


III.

It was a small thing
we took away

no one
would miss it

but they came for us last Thursday
hamstrung and blinded us

in the pillory we could feel the hot rain
of the summer monsoon

I don't know why we took it

it was pretty

how could we have known

the consequences

IV.

Life in the ruins was not easy
we lived as we had too

sometimes
things happened

to the deaf, the blind
in that place

they could find their voice
their eyes

but the cost
was prohibitive to society

the results
unsatisfactory

it made them guilty
in the eyes of the patrols

we hid them as best we could
like Ann Frank in the attic

but the hobnails always came
in the final days

beat down the door
and took them away

V.

Light in the basement window
drew me in

hard to see what they were doing
through rusted bars, grime

I lay like a dog
nose pressed to the glass

I could hear their voices
laughing in foreign tongues

see the shine of instruments
as they worked

the victim on the table didn't move
I breathed a sigh of releif

there was no blood


...