No Clothes, No Food

T’was mid afternoon in the blistering sun

My eyes were half-closed, ears cocked for anything

T’is a town you know, anything may happen

Butterflies swirling in my stomach

Something like a whirr like of a distant roar in my mind

Ne’er did I feel like a premonition o’er me

A garbage heap squirming, smirking down yonder

Human traffic criss-crossing

Nothing peculiar, nothing extraordinary

Suddenly my eyes bulged, ears tickled

A thousand butterflies flapped feverishly

The engine-roar was close

E’er me I saw him

On the garbage mound

Greasy

Clammy face

His feet were baked in dirt

Hair locked in thick disheveled knots

He was chewing something

Everytime he swallowed it, he closed his ping-pong-like eyes

The human traffic was unpertubed

It would cast a glance at the man

And fixedly cast forwards

It won’t allow children

Look at the naked ghost:

May cause nightmare to kids

If they lingered a while they were pinched

I shuffled away

But the pleading innocent eyes have followed me here

C) Lorot Salem 2010