NOBODY'S CHILD

 Nobody's Child

10 years old

alone frightened and cold

locked 
behind a clanking door

mean loud cops.

High ceiling atop her head

under her feet gray cement floor

She shivers and cries on a rusted bunk bed

Staring at the hole 
high in the wall 
way up above

where a window alcove,

Filters dim light on her childhood morgue.

She weeps and sobs 

Next to a shroud 
Wool blanket 
smelly and rough,
sheared off sheep’s back.

Little girl drowns down a tear spout

but past the metal door cops laugh.

Still, her heart holds on to hope 

 "Mother will come to take me home." 

She climbs to the wall window 

time and again

to peep outside in the street, 

waiting to see Mother’s teased hair 
and her shiny red lipstick. 

It doesn't happen and she cries herself to sleep, 

to anger the heartless cops

who peek through the tight window grille 
and shout ugly invectives still.