Big Marty Milano
Big Marty Milano
Blue-veined sausage nose
slightly off center
toward the right side of
a florid cop face
white-gloved hands
directing traffic
to the piercing rhythm
of staccato blasts from
the black wooden whistle
clenched between his teeth
everyone called him
Big Marty Milano and
he conducted a busy
three street confluence
of automobiles pedestrians and
kids going to and
from school like it was
his personal symphony orchestra
he was a beat cop
walking the streets
a kind word for every
old person living on his turf
a stern look for teens
with mischief on their minds
and an aura of invincibility
as he twirled his nightstick
on a black leather thong
woven between meaty fingers
Big Marty Milano
died one Friday night
in late March 1950
bleeding out beneath
The lamppost on the corner
in front of Doc Felcher’s drug store
after taking two bullets
in his neck trying to stop
a robbery in progress
the shots woke me up and
I watched from my
fourth-floor bedroom window
sobbing into my pillow
as the ambulance and patrol cars
flooded the streets with
sirens and flashing lights
they covered his body
with a raincoat but
his huge crepe soled cop shoes
stuck out of one end
the next Monday morning
when I left for school
there was a new officer
directing traffic
he wore a strip of
sticky black electricians tape
across his silver NYPD badge
but I just couldn’t
look at his face…
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