Just an old man on a fast, healthful walk,

I was ambushed on quiet Magnolia Street;

my assailants, two boys, seven or eight,

flaunted their plastic guns from their dead yard.

One sprayed me from the hip, old-gangster style,

the other, took careful head and chest shots,

leering at me with deliberate calm.

Refusing to ordain their murder play,

the chest/clutching drama/death of feigned pain

on a twisted face, which they demanded;

I threw them my pain and a snubbing of

their killing fields, a dam/you/glare as only

an old man tired of rote/learning/games can.

Incessant perforations of the air

by forced/breathe bullets pursued me far past

my escape around the corner to Oak.

Their muddled voicings of derisive taunts

rent the air for my refusal to die.