Poetic License: ‘Where was I on December 7, 1941?’
In the back storage room
of our family bodega sitting
on a sack of kidney beans,
listening to the Football Giants-Dodgers game
when the announcer interrupted
to report that the Japanese
had sneak-attacked us and my brother
ran to the front of the store
to tell my mother and the customers
while I took advantage of the distraction
to sneak two maraschino cherries
from the jar they thought
they had hidden from me,
then I listened to the game
and more news and a whole gang
of my brother’s friends came into the store,
all talking at once, saying how they
would all go together
to the recruiting offices
in Times Square tomorrow morning
to sign up before the war ended
because we were sure
to beat the “Japs” quickly
but they changed it to the afternoon
because my brother had school
and one of the others had a job;
the Giants lost
and I went into the front of the store,
my brother asked me the score of the game,
and I told him:
“Ace Parker did it to us again.”