Young Man With a Ham

American Poetry Review, The, May/Jun 1999 by Tate, James

I'm watching him from my window. He's clutching the ham as if it were a football everyone wants to steal. He keeps looking over his shoulder and stopping to make sure the ham is secure in his grip. No one's on the street but him. But wait, old Mr. Wilson, who lives down the street from me, has suddenly appeared in his fedora and suspenders and is jogging as best he can after the young man.

I go out onto the porch to watch. The young man has not yet seen Mr. Wilson. Then in the last minute he spots him and starts to run. To my great amazement, Mr. Wilson dives through the air and tackles him. They wrestle and grunt. Mr. Wilson wrenches the ham free, gets away and starts racing down the street with the ham. Clearly it's his ham now.