Would He Ever Know … a Poem

Would He Ever Know?

Introduction:  Recently, I attended a poetry writing workshop conducted by Tracy K. Smith, America’s remarkable Poet Laureate.  She rekindled my fascination with poetry, which has remained banked and largely overlooked for decades.

Challenged – in just three minutes – to come up with a question that would trigger a poem, I recalled a scene from 55 years before, and not only the question, but the poem was born in moments.

When I was 12 and hanging with some friends, lighting plastic model ships on fire – firecrackers embedded deep within – then sending them sailing down the North Branch of the East Fork of the Chicago River (I kid you not), we watched them burning like pre-CGE Hollywood ship-battle models (think John Wayne’s “In Harm’s Way”) until the deep-buried firecrackers put them out of their misery, a cop pulled up and began to hassle us.  I was a bit away from my friends, and was able to surreptitiously glue an M-80 on the cop-car’s muffler (forgetting that mufflers sat right below gas tanks).  The cop, having done his men-in-blue duty, drove off – about a quarter-mile down the street – before the M-80 went off.  BLAAAM … THUBBA-THUBBA-THUBBA.  He threw his Crown Vic into reverse and peeled rubber (in reverse) down the entire quarter mile, while we scattered.

A week later, this happened:

Would He Even Know?

Sitting at my father’s table, a gruff, just man who ruled as a king: judge, juror and executioner.

Proud and content in himself, but swift to pronounce judgment against any he deemed wrong.

“What kind of monster would do that?” he all but bellowed, casting a dismissive glance at our cringing small-town weekly.

“His father should be horse-whipped,” he sternly pontificated, pronouncing sentence on the miscreant’s errant sire.

My face held mask-rigid, my eyes not daring to meet his, I owned my guilt with silent fear and dignity.

That offending firecracker had made such a lovely “bang,” leaving the police car’s muffler clanging off the pavement.

Would he ever know?

Not from me.  Never from me.