Jan 2014
I saw the smooth hands of children grow calloused,
sanded by the empty hopes
that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails.
Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock,
I thought they were just urban children, or the ones
in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated
baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones
how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault.
That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer.
I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of
A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat.
I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs
that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling
to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways.
Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed.
Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke.
Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics;
This one is gone, the one on Brown street died,
We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood.
Charity elevates them into a an opportunity—
A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough
to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins.
God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it.
I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart.
His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy,
The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy
I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people
Both someone’s child, both like dogs.
I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman,
A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour.
I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself.
And that is the problem.
sanded by the empty hopes
that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails.
Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock,
I thought they were just urban children, or the ones
in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated
baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones
how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault.
That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer.
I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of
A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat.
I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs
that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling
to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways.
Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed.
Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke.
Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics;
This one is gone, the one on Brown street died,
We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood.
Charity elevates them into a an opportunity—
A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough
to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins.
God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it.
I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart.
His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy,
The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy
I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people
Both someone’s child, both like dogs.
I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman,
A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour.
I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself.
And that is the problem.
