by Alison Stevens
After the mask is off
and the handcuffs put away
alone in your darkened room
do you dream of a desk
in a corner office
lit with fluorescent lights?
Do you hope for a view
of a young secretary
in a tight skirt?
Or do you dream instead
of your children being picked up
from school by your wife
parked behind a van
when masked men who talk like you
rip your wife from the driver’s seat
while your children watch and scream?
Or do you dream about
what might have happened to your father
when you were young and he took you to work?
He could have been tackled by men in masks
thrown to the ground and shot while you watched
and the men whose skin looks like yours
held your arms behind your back while you cried.
Alison Stevens is a retired attorney who has returned to her youthful love of poetry. In her work she highlights the mundane and trivial events in life that emerge with meaning and sentiment. Her work has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Rip Rap, Listening Life, AKA Magazine, and Sound Affects.
