HOFFA, AFTER LABOR DAY

by David Feela

The arrow points to where Anthony "Tony Z" Zerilli says Jimmy Hoffa was buried in Oakland Township, Michigan (Oakland Press, June 17, 2013). Other reports claim Hoffa was "garroted by Anthony 'Tony Pro' Provenzano, a notorious New York mobster" in Inkster, Mich., and fed into a wood chipper (Huffington Post, June 21, 2013).

The ground is hard,
not worth turning,
and of the mystery
the air has cleared.

We gather at the lake,
park, or every backyard
we ever mowed,
all our sorrow at the passing
of summer served up cold.
 
The celebration lasts
three days, but Tuesday comes
and we take our places
in a line of expectations,
the ones we formulated
for the future against the ones
imposed by bosses.

“How was your weekend?”
Fine, great, stupendous,
we claim, but the truth,
like Hoffa is that the time,
it just disappeared.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

A MURDER MOST FOUL

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.