Angel Zapata

CHALK DUST

Sis and me took the train
uptown, hopped off
at Hoyt Avenue,
stood over
the chalk outline
where dad
was gunned down.

Dad would say a man
with good posture
attracts a straight
and narrow woman,
but in the end
his spine had curled
into a fetal knot.

The cops said
it was a drug deal
(never said if he
was seller or buyer),
had taken two
to the gut; died
slow—agonized.

Hadn't heard from him
in years. You think
he suffered? Sis said.
I thought of my own
kids, just a wrinkled
photo in my wallet,
and knew that he had.


Gerald So reads "Chalk Dust":



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Angel confesses: "When I was fifteen, I discovered a woman's body on a NYC street. There wasn't a chalk outline, but I've often thought about the family she left behind. Would her children one day visit the very spot she died?"

ANGEL ZAPATA writes fiction and poetry. He is the recipient of the 2012 Mariner Award for Bewildering Stories' most outstanding flash fiction work of the year, "Carrion Folk", and a winner of the MicroHorror 2012 Story Contest for his horrific tale, "The Blood Worms". He's also the author of the poetry chapbook, An Offering of Ink and Feathers. Visit him at arageofangel.blogspot.com.