FERAL CHILD

(Illustration by J. Lockwood Kipling, 1895)



At first, they thought
It was a raccoon
Rooting through their trash,
Leaving a mess
On the back porch.

But one night, Lizzy
Got a look at him.
After she switched on the light,
He was gone in a second.
She never saw a person
Move so fast.
Though it was fall
And cold, the boy
Was naked, but
She barely saw his body.

For that instant, her eyes
Got locked with his:
Wide, green, wild, and full of –
Was it fear? His face
Was framed in crazy hair
That stuck out on all sides
And had leaves in it,
And lice too, she would have bet.
Then he was a blur,
Shooting off toward the trees.

She’d been half asleep
And headed back to bed.
She’d sleep no more that night,
Though there would be
No more disturbances to hear.
How old was he, she wondered.
It had left her, not afraid,
But more unsettled,
Her old view of life disrupted
By this unpredicted possibility.

She woke up her Charlie.
He called the police.
They went out back
With flashlights, poked around.
One stepped in human dung
Wiped on dry leaves.
The other said they’d had a similar report
About a week ago – a woman
Down the block – and she’d
Been able to describe him.
He didn’t sound like any
Missing children from the area.
Liz shuddered, picturing a tribe
Of missing children
Living hidden in the woods,
Something like Lord Of The Flies.

But she felt sure
That this boy wasn’t missing;
He’d been lost since birth.
His parents were not
Looking for him.
She felt sure
There were no words
For what he’d been through.

She wondered whether she
Should leave food on the back porch,
Keep the kid
From messing up their trash –
Well, OK, keep the kid
From starving. She flashed briefly on him
Catching birds for food,
Dismissed the image quickly
Lest it clarify too much.

As far as they knew, he never
Tried their house again. But from that night on,
She would keep the cat inside.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.)

IS YOUR CHILD AN ANIMAL?

(photo by PETA, found at Wikipedia)


Stone lions are safer
Than real ones –
By which I don’t mean
They won’t attack;

No one will try
To tame them,
Make them into pets.

They’ll guard the door
On either side,
Like dogs, but
They won’t see
The irony.

They will not long
For living flesh
Between their teeth,
Or dream of leaping
On a running zebra’s back.

Once, I talked
To a bear at the zoo
On a steaming hot day.

His cage was small,
Barely had room
To turn around –

He looked
Bedraggled and
Depressed.

I asked,
“are you unhappy?”

He rolled over
On his side, looked
At me upside-down,
And groaned;

I’m sure
He understood.

A bratty little boy,
Running around
Unsupervised,
Plunged through
A group of pigeons, scattered
Them, stopped
Near the cage,
And screamed
To split sensitive ears.

Sadly, the bear
Was too dis-spirited
To even try
To reach him.

So we humans allow
Our offspring
To run wild,
And yet build cages
For the kings of
Beasts, and
For those damaged grown-ups
We consider “monsters,”

And we blame their state
On their neglectful
Parents, and it all
Goes ‘round in circles

Like a lion
In a cage


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey


All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way withot the author's written permission.

GUTTER SAILORS

Streets run like water
Spilled on the world,
Streaming
In bright sunlight, hissing
On the way.

Street kids play
With paper boats
That float in gutters,
Catching them
Before they reach
The sewer, unafraid
Of cars
Or germs.

But unlocking
The fire hydrant
Is a crime. Hide
The magic wrench,
or it might get confiscated
By the cops!

Sadly, it isn’t safe
To play at the real river,
Only half a block away.
The cops find
Bodies
Floating there.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.



Yeah, I know. "Morbid" ending, right? I refuse the label "morbid" because it implies it's inappropriate to write (or even think) about certain subjects. Growing up in the city, we were all aware that playing in the streets had an element of danger. And the river -- the Delaware, which flowed right behind my house -- was even more unsafe. If we had forgotten this, we might not be here today.

But by the way, there was originally a "Mary Sunshine" version of the poem, with this additional stanza at the end:

All the more reason
For defiance,
For just grabbing
Any shred of joy
You can.

Fellow poets advised me to edit it out, which felt right to me. I guess we're all "morbid!"