Why!
I was there
On my way to Laflin when the 55th and Garfield bus slowed down.
He should have been passed out from excitement like other 10 year olds playing
football in vacant lots,basketball in streets, and baseball with wooden sticks.
Instead on his way to gas station
collar bone caught bullet like a bleeding brown mitt.
He never made it to first base safe, he never made it home.
I sat there in blue and black CTA seats
and I wished he was struck by a
be-be, paint ball, or tranquilizer gun
but no they simply snatched back cocked metal and released.
He lied there surrounded
face had grazed grass
and when his mother saw him she wished she could resist what purples saw.
cross-fire whiplash
punctured neck
with a certificate to prove his end.
She pawed at his white outline
pleading he would breath life, but when i didn't she wept.
I was restricted to step off bus and on to pavement,
so i had to let my eyes listen
to how blue lights and smudged tears didn't compliment the tragedy.
I mean I was stuck to scene because of the caution tape
and the ambulance
and the way his stretcher jumped as he was being taken to the morgue.
Pedestrians though it was over until they fled like that little boys mother when she
heard her sons blood had been scrambled on the boulevard.
Police mans knees blasted to chest as they chased for blocks ones who failed to
follow: THOU SHALL NOT KILL!
I kept riding past Halsted then on to Racine finally came to Laflin stepped off bus,
looked at the bullet whole in the street sign then asked
what is the purpose of you holding hand high and think u have the right to kill.
Rebecca Johnson
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