H is for Hattie with hands round her throat

H is for Hattie with hands round her throat
04/11/2008 - National Poetry Month post #13, part of The Unlucky Twenty-Six

The Friday movie feature
down at Marrow cineplex
was about a grade school teacher
who put ropes around kids' necks
in a manner that was shocking
when they wouldn't stop their talking--
it was billed a scary screecher
and the plot was not complex.

A red-haired girl named Hattie
who had just joined our fifth grade
and who always dressed real natty
and wore jewelry, pearls, and jade,
sat with us in perfume scented
and I wish the place was vented
and I don't want to sound catty
but she smelled a bit like Raid.

When the movie started playing,
it was something quite perverse
cuz it started with a slaying
but it quickly got much worse.
Hattie said, "This film's a bore,"
and she leaned down to the floor,
and I watched her, my nerves fraying,
pull a cell phone from her purse.

First she called up Cincinnati
where her friend was on vacation
and who knew she was so chatty
causing endless irritation
folks were shifting in their chairs
throwing deadly evil glares
it was driving us all batty,
her incessant, rude oration.

But I fixed my concentration
and ignored her pointless chatter
for the movie situation
was increasing in its splatter
til I noticed something creepy--
Hattie looked a little sleepy--
seeming under some sedation,
so I asked her, "What's the matter?"

When the movie credits rolled,
Hatties's side I gently poked,
but her body had gone cold
and it seemed like she had croaked
and I saw some gory bruises
from some fingers, not from nooses,
so I told the friend she had on hold
that Hattie had been choked.

One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse or poem every week in addition to my haiku wednesday and fiction friday posts. I will try to do this on Mondays.