My father dulled his surmise.
He rang the register, count ‘em
Greenback and copper upon the eye.
Blue black fell on Harlem.
He poured the day into olive canvas bag
Pocketed the gun, flicked alarm switch
Left the shop, turned key to drag
His gloom, eyes hooded, pitch.
He drove 125th Street to the bank
Parked out front under the trestle.
The bag chuted down night deposit, sank.
He did it 30 years like a dog deaf to a whistle.
Richard Oyama’s work has appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Breaking Silence, Dissident Song, A Gift of Tongues, About Place, Pirene’s Fountain, and Buddhist Poetry Review. He has a MA in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Oyama taught at California College of Arts, UC Berkeley and University of New Mexico.
