The Death of Bambi
Author: Bill Roberts
A man quietly slipped his hand
inside her panties
as we watched Bambi
on the too-close screen
from the second row.
My neck hurt after the movie
and my little sister
couldn’t stop crying.
It’s when I learned
there are predators in the world
who if chance offers
take advantage of little sisters.
Now that I’m old
they seem to be all over
making every loner
and balding senior suspect.
I might never see Bambi again
unless I rent the CD,
watch it from my couch.
(Published in the March 2006 issus of , Red Owl Magazine, now defunct)
Note: Education comes in many forms, some of them unpleasant, but that’s life. Maybe I was too skinny, too ugly to attract the weirdos when I was a kid. Besides, I could outrun them anyway. D.C.’s streets were full of the halt, lame, untidy and unsightly back in the Forties. I recall asking my Dad once why a man we’d just passed was wearing a leather patch across the spot where his nose should have been. He said simply, “Syphilis,” as if I knew what he meant. Saw more than a few such patches in those days, some covering blinded eyes, others missing noses.
