-
Ending Here
- Callaloo
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 23, Number 4, Fall 2000
- p. 1309
- 10.1353/cal.2000.0190
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Callaloo 23.4 (2000) 1309
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Ending Here
Franz Douskey
when his second wife committed
suicide taking the long last
ride at the end of a noose we
said this ain't no accident
just that night the radio
played extra loud and a
crowd banged on the door
nobody answered not even
when the cruiser came
then an hour later the hearse
when he came home he couldn't
get up the stairs and people
spat rages upon his wizened soul
that hole where he should have had a heart
they zipped her in a very nice
body bag and carried her out
and we told him he'd better move
because we didn't want her death
to make life easier for him
because in this neighborhood
some people cry out for justice
but most of us prefer revenge
Franz Douskey is Professor of Humanities at Gateway Community College and the author of Rowing Across the Dark (1981), Sitting Across from Death (1980), and Indecent Exposure (1976). His work has appeared in The Nation, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, the Georgia Review, and the New York Quarterly, among others.
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