I
see a small boy left alone
in a light blue jumper,
lying next to a trash bin.Though it is night, he does not feel
the cold,
though his eyes are open, they do not wonder
at the faces crowding around him.
His face is a dish
offering nothing.
I see a young woman curled
naked
in a cocoon of canvas.
She is not shocked, though she has been found out,
and as they cut the sheath away, she does not feel
exposed,
though a hand removes
a diaper draped across her shoulder,
the one covering she has.
Gather them up and wash
their bodies,
mark well where they lie,
for though they were cast aside
far from where they lived and those they loved,
they were not without worth.
When we meet in our church
basements over cake and punch,
helps us, you who lose nothing,
as we try to remember,
as we utter the names we have given them.
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