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The Coonskin Cap In the class photograph, the one Where Miss Hartung stands to the side So nobody in third grade is Hidden behind her wide, black dress, Jimmy Karras wears the fringe-trimmed Jacket I thought about stealing And Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap. My mother Scotch-taped that picture To our white refrigerator. “The poor boy,” she said, though I thought, Even then, she wanted to preach About envy, fads, and water’s Danger to those who play alone, Because Jimmy Karras drowned In that coat the following day. Instead, she walked me two miles north To where Jimmy Karras had sunk. There were tread-less tires, a box spring, A refrigerator a child could die in. “Can you see him?” my mother said, “Can you?” making me set my stance Wider along the steep pitch Of the bank above the creek that ran Into the Allegheny on its way To Pittsburgh and the Ohio, p22 1FINCKE_pages.qxd 5/21/08 9:31 AM Page 22 The Mississippi, and the Gulf Of Mexico, each an answer On a map test, what Miss Hartung Made us take, grading where we lived And where we imagined living. 23 P 1FINCKE_pages.qxd 5/21/08 9:31 AM Page 23 ...

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