By: Carl Papa Palmer

So I had him murdered, Papa.
Who? Who’d you have murdered?
Humpty Dumpty, in my story.
What story? What’s this all about?

It’s about my English Lit assignment,
the extra-credit over-the-summer
re-write of a famous nursery rhyme.
This was the shortest one I could find.

He reminds me of his dad at his son’s age,
same expression filling my iPhone screen.
My focus erases entirely all peripheral vision
as I fixate upon his face six states away.

Summer’s almost over, when’s school start?
It started already the middle of last month
but, the paper’s not due ‘til tomorrow, smiling
his dad’s same smile from thirty years ago.