Joe Dolce: Little Blue Book

Little Blue Book

We were both eleven or twelve,

shared desks at St Mary’s Bible study class,

reading our little blue Catechism books.

One time he dragged me in a brown wagon

across town, straight

down the centre of a dangerous

five-lane intersection, somehow

avoiding whizzing traffic.

My mother was waiting for me,

at our front gate, holding

the wooden pasta spoon that spoke

when words weren’t enough.

A few weeks later, he didn’t come to Bible study.

I watched his empty desk,

as the nun told us he had been hit

by a car and killed on his way to class.

She said the last thing he said

to the ambulance attendant was

Where is my blue book?

Three months after the burial,

the empty desk filled,

I heard his father, struck

with grief, had shot himself,

through the mouth, with a shotgun,

over the small grave.

Joe Dolce