by Christina Pacosz
Jimmy they're digging up the earth again
to find you, a Valentine's Day baby
from the Hoosier state.
An old farm of disturbed earth. Not even a barn remains.
I am crying at the news. Startled by my tears. So much went down with you.
July 30, 1975. Nixon, for chrissakes, pardoned you. You did your time.
Your children mourn you still. Your daughter, the retired Missouri judge,
says she is grateful to the FBI for trying to find you.
A bone fragment, a bit of hair. Something. You were a man others turned to.
You understood the word solidarity as something in your bones. Your blood. They could kill you
but not that. The Oakland County sheriff calls your disappearance an open wound for Detroit.
You made the Teamsters the biggest union ever and used your clout until they took you out.
You. Hoffa. Your son still runs the union.
This isn't pop history but a midden heap, a litany of woes you tried to fix
so what if you wanted to get yours?
Born and raised in Detroit by working-class Polish-American parents, Christina Pacosz’
poetry/writing has appeared in literary magazines and online journals
for almost half a century. A poet-in-the-schools and a North Carolina
Visiting Artist, she has published several books of poetry, including Greatest Hits, 1975-2001, Pudding House, 2002, a by-invitation-only series. Her chapbook, Notes from the Red Zone,
originally published by Seal Press in 1983, was selected as the
inaugural winner of the ReBound Series by Seven Kitchens Press in 2009.
