Poem 501

It’s all about point of view …

Witness

This man killed twenty-two people
wandering like a waiter
from table to table
taking last orders

twenty-two dead in their food

at a rear table
when his gun jammed
or ran out
he stood there stupidly
clicking
and clicking away

then he walked out
through the hole he'd made
in the afternoon
into the soft nose arms
of the police

the papers said twenty-four
twenty-eight or even forty
the difference didn't matter
to the world

but the number was twenty-two

twenty-two

I was the twenty-third