at Newark Airport, April 2001

I dumped my sundries out

then stuffed them back into my bag,

the checker waving me on through.

Forgetting what I’d packed

in haste and slid in a side pouch:

my father’s blackjack for my son.

 

You couldn’t imagine a more reluctant

cop, one less inclined to cuff a crook

or brandish deadly force. Father,

 

save me from this shrunken

shaven head atop its elongated neck—

the wagging, weighted, long, black tongue

 

about to testify against me.

 

Photo By: Alan Levine