Ode to Police Life

 

 

Written by my Oldest:

 

Some nights, rainy nights

when the police car sirens and the moving trials emit a moaning duet

I lie awake, floating in the substrate

half awake, half sleeping

or thinking I'm doing both.

My mother calls it lucid dreaming.

All my life, the two parallels:

your work, my dreams

my poetry, yours.

In your poem of mine, I float in amniotic fluid

not alive, not dead but dreaming.

(The cat pins me down like lead, the blankets insulating and protective, they

strap me flat. Hold me still. Bubble wrap in a shipping package.)

Sometimes I'm so sorry, and I'm just not sure why.

The sirens very sound arrests my mind, and will chase me into my sleep.

(I was there. I was there when they brought you home,

carried you into the house, to the couch

pale face grimacing in pain, the ducks' sweatshirt and the funny orange patch on your belly.)

So maybe I won't forget– so what?

I'll also not forget

the snowy, canal-side walk,

forensic stickers falling into my hands like snowflakes

stark black and white as newsprint

or our beachside strolls.

So this is an ode, yes, of police life

Not in praise

but in truth. 

Because life is so much more than that.

 

 

Comments

[Junebug]

Fabulous poem.

[Jay]

Very good. It draws you back to read it through again.

[Joe Allen]

Wow.

[RD]

And she is still in Middle School.

[Kelley Kelly / PPG]

Powerful. Good work, Oldest.