Portside

Why hadn't we seen them before
 they jumped from the
 doorway
 96th Street
 as you walked me to
 the Lexington Avenue Subway? 

Startled by fear, you
 bolted away from me
        straight across the street
 fleeing these two young men armed
with
 a large kitchen knife

 I stood there
        thinking calmly (something like
 these poor kids won’t kill me
 all they want is money)

 I didn't think about the knife
 about death
 or getting cut
 I, shocked at you fleeing,
 leaving me alone

Only thought,
 how handsome
 how very nervous these boys are
 how sad that they chose
  me

I remember
 giving them my old beat up
 purse
 cheap plastic it was
 they took off
 almost as fast as you –
 toward Central Park
 2 bucks  in my wallet
 almost as close to poor
 as they

 Funny, we didn’t recognize
 each other’s empty pockets
 before their first attempt at robbery
 and my first experience being robbed.

Mary Ann Castle’s poems have been published in progressive journals, such as Blue Collar Review and Madness [& Capitalism] (in World Poetry Movement).  She has been a social anthropologist with almost 50 years of experience conducting applied research and evaluation in human rights, reproductive health care, public health, and anti-poverty in the United States, India, and Africa.