20150916 (murder)

Best thing about murder is if 

You’re reading about it

You’re not the victim

That’s no small matter depending

On how nearby it occurred

Across the street four houses east

My mom who sometimes sat the 

Kids for us locked all the doors

As we left for a play fortunately

Cut me some slack here she died

Several months before the event

From the bare facts you’d have 

Thought home invasion actually

It was perverse desire the perp for years

Fanned the flames of infatuation lusted

For his cousin’s wife among other

Madnesses had recently escaped 

Or won release from an institution

For the grossly confused only to

Lift a shotgun gratis from a relative

Waited in the house with the wife

Kids kept under threat till the 

Husband came home marched

Them to the basement passing the 

Side door to the driveway she had 

The kids run to the neighbors to call

The police in the basement he made 

Her watch as he blasted the husband’s 

Face from his head his head from his neck

He scrambled with her in tow

To a car he’d borrowed for the deed

Left the scene drove for hours she said

Until the next morning when she

Left him sleeping at some cheap

East Cleveland motel took the 

Shotgun with her and called

The police to go wake him up

People speculated what he’d

Done to her what she’d done 

To survive but nobody knew

Had my mom lived to learn of this

She would have sat our kids 

Only once more to squirrel them

Away sue for custody insisting

We’d never see them again unless

We sold moved away far away

That’s no reason to leave a perfectly

Good neighborhood that was one

Relatively unpredictable event

Like the killing that happened

At the bar I passed every day 

As a child on the way to school 

Sundays to church the bar owner’s 

Wife shot her husband as he lay 

Sleeping off a drunk to forestall 

One more horrific battering 

She did no time inherited the bar

Sold it moved far away

To all appearances the family

On my street were ok people

The victim had worked at our

Branch garage the kids were as

Normal as kids could be before 

Their dad’s death they stayed 

With relatives after we never 

Saw them again she never 

Came back we thought she sold

Moved far away

c. J.S.Manista, 2015