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.

Etta Abrahams

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

"Here's how you spot a pickpocket,"
my father warned:
"He's the one who shouts
'Watch your pockets!'
"Then when you feel with your hands,
he's onto you,
and goes to work."

One of many warnings
I scoffed at:
Fifteen years old,
on my way to Times Square
to see the ball light up
1959, before explosions
tore apart the Towers
built on Battery Place
where he once worked, when
Kabul and Baghdad and Aleppo
were only names
in fairy tales, and pickpockets
were the least of our worries.


Etta reads "The Good Old Days":



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Etta confesses: "My dad's office was on Battery Place, site of the World Trade Center. He died January 2001 at 106, eight months before 9/11. I remembered his decades-old advice. Poignant."

ETTA ABRAHAMS is Emerita Professor of American Thought and Language, Michigan State University, and is co-owner of 2 Write Better LLC, an editing company.

Day 21: "True Confessions" by Etta Abrahams

Day 21 of 30 Days of The Five-Two features "True Confessions'" by Etta Abrahams.

Feel free to join the tour with a comment, tweet, or blog post of your own. Here's the schedule.

Etta Abrahams

TRUE CONFESSIONS

"I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd be out looking for the next job...Go where the money is...and go there often." —William “Willie” Sutton (1901-1980)


When Willie Sutton went to jail in 1952, I prayed
for how-long-I-don't-know,
he’d get good books, and especially
an RCA Color TV --
like my friend Nancy Freigang had
that I
did
not.

I stole loose change
off Daddy’s highboy,
unsnapped the little purse in Mommy's
handbag, later lifted
Tangee lipstick from Kresge's.
Never
got
caught.

Even now, knowing
he robbed from the rich,
kept it for himself,
never said he hit banks
"Because that's where the money is," I
adore
him.

Some days I want to crank down my
car window, toss Hershey wrappers
to the wind, hold up the Shop 'n Save,
make off with the day's
receipts,
wear disguises.
Keep
on
going.


Etta reads "True Confessions":



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Etta confesses: "When I was a child, I saw a photo of Willie Sutton in the paper and thought of him as Robin Hood. Something about him appealed to my sense of justice, and I wanted to help him. A color TV was the only thing I could think of. I've always been drawn to 'bad guys'. Maybe I thought I could reform them!"

ETTA C. ABRAHAMS is emerita professor at Michigan State University where she taught writing and American cultural ideas. She spends part of the year in Michigan and part of the year in Maine, along the coast. She has published essays and fiction on crime and mystery writing and has presented many papers on the subjects. Recently, she began writing poetry, and enjoys that, as well. She is co-owner of 2 Write Better LLC, editing consultants.