The Author As Man Who Watches Sam Get Murdered From A Dark Alley And Proceeds To Hide As He Listens To Molly Scream In Ghost

By Keith Montesano / Issue 6

After the film by Jerry Zucker

I was there, among the stench & decay & back alleys—

beyond the filth of this place. I was waiting to score

from a no-show, & saw the guy come from nowhere—

some dark street at a distance. I can make it all up

with excuses and inexcusables, but it wouldn’t work

for this. I watched & watched. I heard her scream, & thought

maybe he wasn’t dead, that the gods, & luck, somehow, saved

a life that night, & I was witness to it: to heaven, to love,

to the world of screaming & dying lovers. Because

that’s what we get in the end: the fearlessness, & the fear

of a watcher who feels for his life, & knows he can do it all

but walk over, after, & offer some condolence, something

to say this will all work out. & we know it will. & we know

those dark alleys are places we need, we feel, & end with.

Keith Montesano is the author of the poetry collection Ghost Lights (Dream Horse Press, 2010). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quarterly West, Third Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Blackbird, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He currently lives with his wife in New York, where he is a PhD Candidate in English and creative writing at Binghamton University.