He smiled at me

with big brown eyes

and lips that quivered.

His black spiky hair

and the scar on his face

said it all.

He’d been a child,

so tender and kind

and now he was hard

with no feeling

The other children led him on,

to write on the walls and so forth.

He was young and vulnerable.

What did he know

about the wrongs and rights

of the world?

The fight was exciting

with a very good crowd

who cheered them on.

But now I look at him again

and he smiles,

that tender and kind child

might not be so far away.

He might be retrievable.