It is early evening, my favorite time, the time when most of my poems come to me, the hour before dusk changes the landscape. My baby daughter is sleeping in her sling, her reassuring weight bouncing against my hip as I walk down Colorado Avenue. On this Friday before the holiday, it is deserted. Most people went out of town or are hiding in their houses getting drunk. A few cars pass by. Suddenly I hear my mother's voice clear as day in my ear. “Lucy, look up!”

I look up to see a large rusty brown car stop across the street. Two men get out. They are surprisingly similar these two men, both wearing white tee shirts, both tall and dark haired and of indeterminate race to my eyes. They rush across the street, slant-wise, to about ten feet behind me. I walk. I tell myself they are not following me and my baby, that they are going to the liquor store, which is a few blocks away. Then why didn't they drive, a pesky voice inside me chimes in. I quicken my steps, to silence this voice and they quicken theirs. I glance behind me and take in their measurements, searching for weak spots,signs of old injuries, but can discern nothing. Without the baby, I would stop and face them. A car might come along at any second. With my baby in my arms, I know they can use her against me. They are so big and are getting bigger all the time in my mind, while my baby and I are growing smaller and more fragile.

I turn down the street I would normally take to get to my house, which is an old Victorian, somewhat dilapidated, but a good-boned gal. They turn too, now closing the gap to only five feet. I am running now for my life and that of my baby girl. I pass an alley, a shortcut and a voice, sounding like my mother's says, “Turn down that alley and you're dead.” My mother read a lot of crime novels, she'd know what she was talking about. So I hold my baby tight in my arms, so afraid she'll fall out of her sling, and run for all my salt.   I consider stopping to scream “Fire,” since I am afraid no one will come if I just scream.  My mother always taught her daughters to yell "Fire," if we were ever attacked, since it was her firm belief that most people cared more for their property than the life of a stranger.  

An elderly woman saves me. I see her on her porch with her phone. My pursuers, only a few feet away from grabbing me and my child, run away, getting smaller as they go.  I do pause to watch their threat go away, to suck  a few fresh breaths into my needled lungs.  I say some thanks, but then turn and begin to run again. It has become imperative that I reach home immediately to see the rest of my family, since for the last fifteen minutes I feared I might never return to them. When I lay my daughter safely down, which is the first thing I do,  I see that she slept during her mother's wild run. I am happy that none of my fear touched her – that nothing evil touched her that evening.  Now, I can't stop sobbing. I hug my husband and my son. I stare at my daughter. I call the cops, but sob more when I tell the dispatcher. Those men fit a description of wanted men. Hope the police caught them that night, before they targeted another woman, whose only crime was to assume she was free on a lovely summer evening.