Shannon Hamann

The Violent Imagination

What's the worst thing you could ever do?
I think about the two young boys in Liverpool who killed a toddler
—his body found cut in two
on the railroad tracks
on Valentine’s Day 1993—
and I remember myself at their age, when I gathered wildflowers
for my mother
and other women in the neighborhood,
and how beautiful they were, the handfuls of goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace,
black-eyed Susans—
and how talented and sensitive I was considered—
and how we planted snapdragons, moss roses, and chrysanthemums
in the yard—
And then I see Robert Thompson and Jon Venables carrying Jamie Bulger
through crowded streets,
one of them like a beauty queen with an armload of tulips,
the runner-up tagging along,
a casual audience flanking
the three mile walk to the spot:
"No," someone observed,
"they were like doctors—one had the body,
the other held the head, purposefully—
like rushing an epileptic to a hospital bed."
"No, it was more like carrying a wriggling cat," said another witness—
Jamie’s veined belly shown like a ball,
as he squirmed and cried
crossing the cemetery.
"It wasn’t like that at all, when I saw them," confided yet another.
"The baby trusted them,
they just held hands
and walked."
The world watches, posing
stunned questions. It can’t remember
anything so...
(speech fails)
But didn’t Mary Bell, at the age of ten,
kill a toddler
with scissors
in England?

Cover by Attila Richard Lukacs
The Boy Looked at the Angel, the Boy Fell in Love with the Angel's Face