Poem #15 for Poetry Month -- "Long ago I heard footsteps"

[nightdog_barks]

This poem is from the American writer Miriam Bird Greenberg, and is about a call for help on a dark night. One might say it's a tiny, condensed version of a Nightdog story.



Long ago I heard footsteps


Long ago I heard footsteps
come to the door, and a man

knocking. We’ve had an accident

up on the road, can you help
he pled at the unanswered door,

and kept knocking.

He might have been a thief
but soon enough a woman’s howl

lit up the night, and I put a knife
in my belt. Around dawn

I figured their fortunes
might be worth change.


~ Miriam Bird Greenberg
From Poetry, November 2010
Online source here.

Comments

[pwcorgigirl]

I liked it because it's possible to read it both ways: the people were in an accident and the narrator decided after a while to change their fortunes -- give them aid but go out with the knife in his belt just in case, or he goes outside, does something awful to them, which is implied by the scream and slipping the knife in his belt afterward, and then decides their fates at dawn.

[nightdog_barks]

:-)

And this is true also.

I thought the narrator here was interesting -- he (or she) seems to be frightened of thieves, which implies this (wherever they are) is a violent place.

Detective Sergeant Ronnie Brooks does not approve.