The people on Nightingale Street
congregate tonight
beside a corpse. One pulls back
the hair; another peers into the eyes
that watched them from afar;
a third unfolds the fists.
Each shudders at the slender hands
that noted their movements
and the sins inside them. Each attempts
to recall what brought them
Friday afternoons from sun
to drape-drawn dark: a lover waiting,
a word to be erased, seven digits
magically becoming six. It was never
loud like murder—no—their transgressions
never boiled into blood, but
there was one that could’ve been a baby
and another one they mocked
the day she cried her innocence. Yes—
they were merely matters of correction,
happenstance becoming history
as many slept on Nightingale Street.
Nothing got into the Journal Leader.
So they wonder what to do,
a different scrutiny: no identifying
scars, no features that scream.
John Pullman has a pickup truck;
Judy Baxter six blocks of cement.
The rain’s been heavy this spring
and the lake at Rabbit Pass is high.

# # #

Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, including The Maine Review and Posit. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Boon is currently editing a volume on food in American literature.

Photo: Danielle Dolson