A powder keg of emotions

                                A small child frightened not by what he knows

                                But what he senses

                                Water drips from a leaky spigot

                                A mother slowly transversing

                                A strung out clothesline

                                Her hands shaking as she lights another cancer stick

                                Staring out blankly at the vacant lot

                                Which was her life.

                                In her bassinet

                                the baby cries for his mother’s teet

                                Sighing

                                She drops her cigarette

                                Lifts her baby up

                                And grants him the milk he craves

                                The only form of nourishment the baby will

                                Probably ever know

                                From the bosom of his fractious mother.