Caseworker Determining Eligibility
Cabrini-Green Projects
Chicago
The child, age two, hammocked in the half
moon of his mother’s arms, is locked
in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,
moves the other as his mother answers,
application form interrogation.
The father was a white policeman.
“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.
I didn’t go with him for money.”
Donal Mahoney
Strike one and blood spattered through the air,
strike two left, brains in her hair.
Strike three and it was that was all
for now her lifeless body slid down the wall.
The child watched as they carried her away,
and all he could do is pray.
His mentor, the man he looked up to, has done this,
swinging without cause even after a passionate kiss.
The boy had seen this so many times before,
and his mother stayed so the boy thought she wanted more.
More of the blood that bled from her body, from time to time,
and his father doing this so frequently how could it be a crime.
It ended with his mother always locking him in the room,
while she was pushing glass with a broom.
Was this the child’s thought when they drove his mother away,
or was his father just a hunter killing his prey?
Ten years have gone by from that faithful night,
and the boy remembers that fight.
Then it happened as he held his own little tyke,
a vision of hate and anger then he made the first strike.