Leaning over as if to kiss the blood
from his friend’s broken face, the boy holds
a cigarette between his smudged, blunt
fingers, offering it to the wound
that was his buddy’s mouth, the delicate
damaged head harbored by his other arm.
The side mirror recasts them in close-up,
so we almost miss the third who’s joined them
at the driver’s jagged window — eyes barely lit
by the flash, his face a dark moon —
as if he wants to climb into the car, as if
he wants to savor fear’s taste and tang,
the body’s acrid flush of acid,
the chill beads of sweat pooled at the crotch.
___
Previously published in Black Stars of Blood: The Weegee Poems (Main Street Street Rag, 2018)
International Center for Photography
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