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Bank Robber's Note
I am in love with you, bank teller.
So lift the cool swim of your dress
and call me Jesse James.
The clock turns on twelve,
its guns drawn. I have a silver
dollar in my boot heel.
Kiss me. Your mouth
like a bullet, my spurs spinning.
Keep your eyes on me.
This is a robbery.
The Last Song
If you stand here long enough,
a child will run by singing
under the green trees.
She will ask your name
and you will tell her that you are a hero,
that you have come here to die.
She will lie down at your feet,
the sunlight handcuffing her wrists.
Think of all the animals
moving in the cool grass:
ants humming to their bread,
aphids clinging to their leaves,
mosquitoes flexing their wings,
roof rats bouncing beneath the trees,
the dark applause of their shadows,
and the belted kingfisher
in the lowest branch, swallowing a goldfish.
You were born once. You tell yourself
you are a king, that a city moves
in your blood, and the house behind you
tilts like a crown. The child at your feet
rises like a nun and you notice
your family waving their fists from the porch.
We love you, they shout, but you
are already running through the wet grass
under the green trees,
singing the last song of your life.
Eddie Dowe is an 8th grade English and Creative Writing teacher in Norfolk, VA. and 2nd year student in the Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. Previously published in The Country Mouse, Simply Haiku, The Ghent Reader, Poetry 360, and Skipping Stones Anthology. (December 2006)
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