Lingo Rhymes with Ringo

“No, but I was held up at gunpoint once
at an ATM,” I explained
when Lulu asked about my poem,
a narrative about being robbed
by a hood from Liverpool,
a made-up tale mostly about his accent,
the back-of-the-tongue velarized sound –
toward the soft palate, the velum –
adenoidal, like Ringo Starr.

“A teenaged kid with a gun.
The machine caught his face on the camera,
when he raced away.
Of course I reported it to the police.

“I wasn’t his only victim, either.
So when the cops inevitably nabbed the boy –
same ATM each time,
on a lonely block by a U-Haul garage,
near the university –
a bunch of us went to his preliminary hearing
or whatever you call the courthouse procedure,
to see if he’d be charged.

“He sat on a bench with his lawyer,
looking around the courtroom,
trying to act casual,
but he recognized the half-dozen of us he’d mugged,
whispered to his lawyer,
copped a plea.”

Copped a plea, I said to Lulu.
I love that noir detective lingo.

“At least I didn’t wind up in the Ozzy,”
I slanged, exaggerating a Liverpool accent.