Fireworks or gunshots?
I heard a loud
pop, pop—
do you think they’ll stop?
I’ve got children sleeping,
my husband can’t hear
the same movie he’s seen only
seven times since he was sixteen.

At the delicatessen on
Henry St. in The Heights,
he was the senior counterman
at only sixteen years of age.
The 8th grade diploma from
P.S. 32 over on Union made
him the family scholar at the
brownstone on Woodhull St.

Where the Buffalo roam.
And the wild Dogs run amok.
Where the Turkeys and Pheasants and Doves
Fly straight of hot bullets and flaming arrows.