KIDS IN PHONE BOOTHS.

A BOY IS CAUGHT PLAYING AROUND IN A PHONE BOOTH BY HIS FATHER.

You were about nine or ten
And your father caught you
Coming out of a telephone
Booth a block or so from home.

What were you doing in there?
Your father asked. Looking for
Loose coins, you replied. Coins,
Joins, loins, what you talking

About? You think I came down
In the last shower? Who were
You ringing? Kids shouldn’t be
In phone booths, that’s how

They get in trouble with the law.
Ok, you replied. Your father
Looked at you for a few moments.
Were there any coins there?

No, you said. People in this area
Are too poor to leave coins behind,
Your father said looking at you
With his beady eyes. You nodded

Your head and looked at your shoes.
They were scuffed and unpolished.
If people see kids in phone booths
They get suspicious and tell the cops,

You want the cops on your tail?
Want to get on the wrong side?
Huh? No, you mutter. Right then,
Your father said, we’ll not say

Anymore about it and don’t tell
Your mother, you know how you’ll
Go on about it. I won’t, you said.
Your father looked around him then

Back at you. I’m going to the movies
Saturday, there’s a Jeff Chandler film
On, you want to come? Sure, you said,
I’d like that. He nodded and then went

Off up the sidewalk either to work or
Uptown to some w***e and life would
Go on pretty much as it had done before.