Her name you may

or may not recall.

It was Chrissie,

the body in the sand dune.

 

You do remember the shark,

the blood on the water,

death spreading like

a virus in the town of Amity.

 

You do remember that

the beaches should have been closed

but Amity was a summer town

that lived on summer dollars.

 

You do remember the shark

doing what it was built to do—

killing Mrs. Kintner’s little boy

on that beautiful July 4th day.

 

You do remember Mrs. Kintner’s

cold blooded slap

on police chief’s Body

warm blooded face.

 

“You knew there was a shark out there.

You knew it was dangerous

but you let people go swimming anyway.

You knew all those things

 

-BUT STILL MY BOY IS DEAD NOW!”

 

“She’s wrong,”

the mayor says.

“No, she’s not,”

Chief Brody acknowledges.

 

Suddenly you remember

reading a news piece

that Mrs. Kintner (Lee Fiero)

was a victim of the pandemic.

 

You realize there is no

police chief, scientist, grizzled old salt

banding together to do the right thing,

uniting to triumph over disease, death,

 

Only the orange hair President

standing deep in the drowning tide

smiling and waving and

telling everyone the water is fine.

 

“We are all Mrs. Kintner  now.”

 

 

Note:

 

The final line is a quote by Mary McNamara,

the obituary writer for the Los Angeles Times.