Caution for Children Crossing
hand-lettered sign on the back of an ice cream truck
I didn't want that boy down the street
in my poem. All I wanted
was my aunt snipping that last loose thread
on my dress, my mother just closing the clasp
of my grandmother's pearls at my neck,
and my father with his camera, trying
to find me in its frame, to focus, snap
his daughter, sixteen, ready to leave
for her first prom. I wanted us
held there in the small square
of the green lawn, my father telling me
what time he wanted me home
as an ice cream truck passed
chiming Brahms' Lullaby.
Then that boy ran into my poem, unwanted.
He chased his mother with a bright
knife. She slammed door after door
between them. I never knew
who called the police. They angled their car
across the driveway. Its radio crackled.
Its lights whirled, hurled yellow grenades
through the air. Those cops poked that boy
with their questions, prodded his silence,
whispered their warnings.
He stood on the grass at the curb, handcuffed,
sixteen, her I never wanted you
still ripping the air.
I wanted to give that boy change
to buy ice cream. I wanted to give him someone
who'd tell him what time he should be home.
But with that boy in the poem,
it could only end
like this.
Sandra Cutuli
Sandra Cutuli is a children's librarian who lives in Los Angeles. Her work was included in Poetry in the Windows II and in the recently published Matchbook.