Etta Abrahams

WHITEY ON THE LAM

He got what
He deserved you say,
An FBI rat who lived
16 years off mad money stashed
in Santa Monica condo walls.

Bulger kept his beard trimmed,
his mouth shut,
loved his curly black poodles.
His girlfriend was a dental tech.
His brother was President
of U Mass, for chrissake!

Prison guards now
unroll the U-Haul-rough wool
shroud that binds
his 89-year-old body,
crushed in his cage,
unrecognizable pulp, tongue torn
from his mouth.

But wait!

Maybe he fingered someone else
to take the pounding.
Unrecognizable.
What you’d want if
you wanted to disappear
forever.

Jack the Ripper
DB Cooper
Jimmy Hoffa
and Whitey—
with some canned goods
and maybe a few
changes of underwear.


Etta reads "Whitey on the Lam":



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Etta confesses nothing.

This is ETTA ABRAHAMS's third published poem at The Five-Two. Professor Emerita at Michigan State University, she still can't identify the reason she's interested in crimes, criminals and writing about them, but she has tracked that interest in scholarly essays and fiction and more recently in poetry writing. When not reading or writing about those on the other side of the law, she enjoys the companionship of her life partner, Herb Greenberg, her children and their families and her two canine companions, Oliver and Little Dorrit. In addition to these pleasures, Etta and her colleague Jenifer Banks, have an editing business, 2 Write Better, LLC, and offer their services to scholars, students and would-be writers alike.