A sanguinary memory came floating up
to the surface of consciousness
stinking like machine-gunned Iraqi soldiers
left to rot in a sandy ditch;
a dread of a memory:
did you or didn’t you commit murder that drunken night
when pushing a thief down steep, steps from an illegal gambling den?
An old woman,
one of those who never sleeps
and sees everything said
that a man had been carried out of a hallway,
no, she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.
She looked at my shoes
they were full of blood and said:
You pushed and kicked him didn’t you,
give me $10 and I will not tell anyone,
her eyes were dark pools of greed
I see an open mouth a black toothless gob
and hear the beginning of a scream,
did I kill her too?