Locus delicti

("place of the crime")

Heavens boy, don't you think
to clean your coat? Never mind.
Get a bath. Those ears
must be sprouting potatoes.
An hour late!
Did you talk to strangers? What's got
into you? You're silent as a shrew.
Come on, shake a leg. Tea's cold.
Jack. What is it? Don't shake
your head. You're not a wet dog.

I let her
dump the coat and buy a new one.
Spent weeks terrified some sleuth
would dig it out of a landfill
and raid the pockets.
My body slid into the bath; my hand
remained clamped around air.
I sank
up to the oval of my face
in the aloe water
and never again -
even when the sun grinned
and the steel drums from
a nearby carnival plinged -
never again,
as long as I could walk,
did I turn onto Brewster's Lane.
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