The Wrist-Snatcher

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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The others, of course,
are more rabid than I
but less apt to show it.
Whenever I strike,
I never romp off.
I stand under neon,
the wrist that I’ve snatched
tight in my teeth
as I wait with a smile
for the wagon.

As one of the few
wrist-snatchers still
on the streets of Chicago,
I make all of my rounds
in old tennies.
They allow me to dive
for the purse hand,
whack it and sink
my teeth in the wrist
of the free hand,
give a terrier’s yip
then head for the neon
where I duck so my head
can spin on its shoulders
till I am certain
I have no pursuers.

In dreams every night
I see all of the women
whose wrists I have had in my teeth
standing like Statues of Liberty,
shrieking and waving
their stumps like flares.
Every night their screams
carve a frieze of patrol cars
in the middle of the street.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.