'Brooklyn Cop' by Norman MacCaig



Brooklyn Cop

 

Built like a gorilla but less timid,                                   

thick‑fleshed, steak‑coloured, with two

hieroglyphs in his face that mean

trouble, he walks the sidewalk and the

5        thin tissue over violence. This morning,

when he said, "See you, babe" to his wife,

he hoped it, he truly hoped it.

He is a gorilla

to whom "Hiya, honey" is no cliché.

 

10      Should the tissue tear, should he plunge through

into violence, what clubbings, what

gunshots between Phoebe's Whamburger       

and Louie's Place.

 

Who would be him, gorilla with a nightstick,

15      whose home is a place

he might, this time, never get back to?

 

And who would be who have to be

his victims?

 

by Norman MacCaig

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