He Wore A Green Silk Shirt

Coming through the doorway, a lump of cancer along the inside of his left leg
He wore a green silk shirt, old-fashioned black and white shoes, hair clipped all over his head but needing a shave
Yellow wrinkled pants, dark shades
He gave the note to the teller who was female, went crazy and scream
He hit her across the face with the gun butt, reached a handful of twenty's from the drawer and turned in time to get the uniform guard- a fat guy, very big buck, grew roses, named Broussard

Broussard went down on the big fat butt, a very beautiful red coming out on his shirt like roses
The bandit started running half sideways toward the door or looking for somebody to shoot, looking for a hole in the sky- a way to make it
The people seemed to fit into the walls and he made it outside, still running half bent
And then the squad car came from the other way, he saw it and ran up an alley
The two cops jumped right out and ran up the alley, then you heard the shots
Very loud in that dark valley between the downtown buildings
The violence and gamble and anger of all men, screaming
Then it was quiet
He thought of bread-baking or men under oxygen tents
When the ambulance came they carried out one cop, put him in first
Then carried out the bandit, put him in the same ambulance
And the cop who was standing, holding,
Waiting, standing there holding his wrist where he'd been shot
He suddenly fainted and they put him in too and drove off
And the people stood, talking and talking, and talking, and talking