Based on the Philadelphia Inquirer story ‘Pilot gets 366 days in fatal Duck crash’.
“You should’ve stepped away
You were trained to step away
I don’t know why you didn’t.”
Said the captain yesterday
But the deaths they saw were hidden
When her call came to me, unbidden
A single call
A courtroom wall
She never should’ve told me
Their final breath
The stench of death
The law would take and hold me
The steamboat rolled
The gray river rolled
2:37 P.M. in July
When the teenagers’ fate was told
I felt guilt when they asked me why
And it’s not in my heart to lie
A single call
A courtroom wall
She never should’ve told me
Their final breath
The stench of death
The law would take and hold me
“I shouldn’t have called him
Oh, why did I call him?”
Cried my wife, and tore at her hair
She said “Surgeons have sinned
Left our son without air
As his eyes were fixed in their lair.”
A single call
A courtroom wall
She never should’ve told me
My sentence stands
In judges’ hands
A year and a day, they’ll hold me.
Lily Alexandra Mell is twelve years old and is homeschooled. She lives in Center City, Philadelphia. She has written many
short stories and poems in the last few years, though this is her first time being published. She is currently writing a science
fiction – fantasy novel. She greatly admires the published author Tamora Pierce and aspires to write as well as she does.