What I’d Give To Be
(the death of Frank Searcy)
What I’d give to feel the sun’s warmth again
Leaving the dark, cold mines.
Now all I know is cold.
My skin icy, yet without ability to shiver
I shivered when Kuhl pulled the gun out,
Taking a gander at his crazed face,
eyes bloodshot and blotto
Blood and money- the perfect elixir of betrayal
Popping one, heated bullet out of the cannister,
ripping into my skull, he took my life
like he took the envelopes filled with scratch
Betraying me, left me to bleed out
While he stole the money, our money
The stagecoach seats still ghosted by my blood
What I’d give to smell the moist air of the mines again,
lungs filling with black dust from chunks of cold coal
I’d never hold again
My hands, now black from decay, no longer black from coal dust
Kuhl was messy,
leaving behind a bloody palm print on a single envelope
he forgot to steal.
What robber forgets an envelope full of money?
See, Kuhl got caught
thrashing as they took him away
Yelling out raspily that he was innocent
The simp didn’t hide his evidence well
Had I been in his position, I would’ve burned everything
Burned his clothes and threw the .45 roscoe into the river
He didn’t rot in that sorry ass Jarbridge pokey
the way I rotted on that eerily chilled December day back in 1916
He was let off after a few years, like most criminals are
Sometimes I’ll sit in the stagecoach, thinking
Wishing I had a drag
Because I’m not the one remembered
Nah, I was only a coal shoveling swindler
Whose accomplice turned on him
Oh, what I’d give to have been on his end of the gun
Piper White
Piper White is a lover of fiction, horror and Stephen King. Although fiction is her niche, she loves to dabble in poetry in her free time. She may be named after a witch, but she promises not to hex you.