Child in a Box

author’s note:

I can see myself everywhere.  If I’m willing to look.


CHILD IN A BOX

While finding my way in an unknown town
I spied a child
sitting in a big cardboard box
in the back of an abandoned lot.

I wanted to pity him—

his scratch of land seemed so desolate:

Cold sun rays glinted hard
off broken bottles.
A ragged wind stuck paper scraps
on the barbs of a barb-wire fence.

But despite that scene
the child wouldn't stop laughing.

At what? Perhaps he enjoyed watching
those two crows pick at a scatter of fries.

But when he spotted me, he continued to laugh.

What?  Was I such a joke?
Couldn’t he see how I grieved his plight?
How could I empathize
with him cackling in the wind that way?

With that last question
I suddenly realized
I held this secret wish:

I wanted to see a sad sight
so I could release my sad sighs.
I felt sorry for him, yes
but I also felt sorry for myself.

I was a child abandoned in an empty lot.

But that barbed broken-bottle lot
really wasn’t so empty, was it?
And who had abandoned my child
if not me?

I then began to laugh along with that child—

at the fool who would not let himself play
in this wild sunny world of abundance.

mythsteps · Child In A Box

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