An award winning poem from Meter, Muse & Rhyme

A steamy day in Cicero, a 1940 GE fan at my feet circulates

 dead air around thin ankles.

President Clinton promised something today, and I gave a dollar to the DAV;

neither accounted for much on a pension like mine;

things had been worse.

Almost a year since Charlene’s death.

I had fallen asleep during the ten o’clock news.

Charlene’s voice called to me, nudging me awake;

I saw her and two armed men, and heard the TV

warning about a prison break

Three hours of threats and ransacking our home

made both of us anxious;

she would pat my arm

or we would gently squeeze our fingers together

sitting at the kitchen table.

These nervous intruders kept threatening;

Stand up ya old shit. He pushed

me in the direction of the back door.

I tried to tell them that I couldn’t go;

Charlene needed to be at the hospital

by 6:30 in the morning.

The one closest to me smacked the side of my face;

hit my shoulder with his gun;

opened the back door and said,

Gimme da keys to that car out there.

As I turned to grab my jacket,

the shortest of the two pushed by us

but tripped somehow;

his gun fired and Charlene fell from her chair,

slumped against the icebox.

The younger jerked

the other man’s arm, pulling him out the door.

I shouted Charlene’s name a hundred times.

The neighborhood children are catching fireflies in our front yard.