Sweet Thing           

Allen, allow me this now:  Imagine
I am seeing beyond your obstinate skin—
Am plunged beneath your stockfish eyes—
To peruse one of Charon's creamy lies,

Which has brought to you a little girl
Whose faces are in a sort of nostalgic swirl
Of all the father-failing seeds you sowed
On earth. Surely this is true reward!

You cry out, Daughters! and wait for love,
Smiling: My wicked ways return a trove?
Had you foreseen beyond the door
In life your sins had grown all the more!

But recall— The work of life kept you away.
Concern for yours was but for another day.
And now that day occulting come,
And all those loved ones have run and run—

Leaving a single fair child, standing alone,
Who beckons you share her inscrutable home;
And lo! seeming innocent and chaste this sweet thing,
You haven't quite noticed the foul demon ring;

And suddenly Father! rings more like a snort—
Measured by snarls, your noxious escort!
And that's when you suffer the withering hand
That has in its clutches its prized contraband—

I wonder. (Unfair that I can, I know,
Having still that certain inner glow
That you, dear Allen, no longer sense.)
Good luck, my friend, in places dark and dense.

© A. M. Siriano, 2008 Aug 29, All Rights Reserved