Sometimes when a kid runs away from the residential home for children I work at, I can’t help but be a little worried. Most of them are not capable of making healthy choices out there on their own, or of protecting themselves from the most dangerous of predators—the mammals that walk on two legs.
missing
what will become of you?
your meal-back waits silent
cold as the grave
three slices of turkey
industrial green beans
exhausted in a pile and
mashed potatoes
tipping from the edge
of the topmost slice
all soaked in brown gravy
glistening in a dull dim pool
from the styrofoam
at regular intervals
AWOL marks your absence
even your ghosts have gone
slithering off to whisper
doubt and foreboding
behind your mud brown eyes
the roads are long
the streets dusty with soot
tapped from the heals of fear
and predation
you never took that one slow breath
hands trembling eyes twitching
you never breathed down
into the heart of your anguish
giving it room to rise
into understanding
down the hall your room
gapes in the stillness
bed neatly made
writing desk arranged
the dorm radio outlined
in hushed gray hues
the city’s cracked walls
harbor a quiet will to
cull out the weakened
passing cars carry menace
sharp white smiles cheerful
with an unsettling calm
anticipating indulgence
your meal-back waits silent
at the edge of the office desk
on plastic wood veneer
across the narrow room
plastic fluffs the hollow
gray of a tin garbage can
and it too waits
for the nearly plastic cold
of your neglected dinner
