Searching eyes down, stepping on cracks
at the feet of the financial district,
silent boy-prophet dragged,

as with a cart rope, by the hand
under granite-clad shadows.
Hurry up you little ****.

And yesterday Mother's pressure cooker vaporized
someone else's boy, God, eight years old.
I can't imagine. Can you imagine?

Shoes too expensive for this sidewalk. Blonde
boy too camel-haired, grown out,
too distracted, too kinetic

dragged by mother, feet searching for purchase,
and there is no time. No. Stop sulking.
Stop whining. Not now.

Blame congress, or pray to the President. Declare
even the feeblest, dismembered
pronouncement of woe.

This can't happen. Not in America. Buses, working adults,
have places to go, places to be. We're late.
He is too expensive and

don't you know the economy is ****? And you know,
his problem is that his Father
never listened to me either.

One more decade-long game of kick-the-can. What the hell
are you kicking now? He's always kicking something,
always has something strange in his pants

pockets. So he eats If-you-were-a-real-man-you'd-be-more
-like-your-sisters and why the hell
should she feel guilty?

After all, the Nordstrom's card is paid down and You'll never
get into college with that attitude anyway
and *******, keep up.

A nice young man is late getting back to his desk on the sixteenth
floor in a tower above where the wind
shivers the weakening steel.