The Case of The

MONA VAN DUYN

THE CASE OF THE

Drinking the seconal dissolved in bourbon,

stabbed in the fog, shoved into quicksand,

caught in the telescopic sight,

feeling a sudden pressure on the carotids from behind,

scalped, buried, bombed, smothered in cellophane,

"another blow and another, savage, fast,

unreasoning," in Amsterdam,

Gary, Indonesia, Alabama, Budapest,

perilous, perilous the keeping of the human spirit.

Killed everywhere, on the train, in the tomb,

generosity, at the racetrack, grace,

at the tiller, down the sewers, in the unguarded hospital

room,

willingness, in the London slum, on the plane,

at the mountain resort, strength, in the pew,

on Golden Gate Bridge, affection. Nowhere to hide.

Everywhere, everywhere someone is out looking for you.

One, with his mouth hung open to hear,

grunts "Huh?" after every statement. "Huh?"

His prostate swells, blood pressure bangs his head.

"This country's gone to the dogs and the hippies can go

too."

And one pees fourteen times a night,

missing the bedpan every other time.

Her false teeth clicking with malice, she whispers,

"If you don't watch them every minute they'll steal you

blind."

Are the passersby in collusion? Did the victim

deserve what he got? The search for evidence

goes on and on, the light burns,

the sirens whine, the long report says you only live once.

Fingerprints, autopsies, exhumations

tell us a great deal, but the shoes

don't fit anyone we know. As for the bodies,

some were fair of face, some had nothing to lose.

On the last page, the one-eyed witness,

trapped by the D.A., drops his dreams and his lies,

his squirrel mouth opens, and he squeals all he knows:

"The sun done it, coming up every damn morning like

it does!"