Red Dust

Red Dust

On the steps behind the garden gate he sat, 

small dark eyed boy 

compact and steely as a newly minted dart 

coiled in the exile of his mother’s dubious fear. 

Outside others shouted, kicked unseen stones 

in the red baked earth – 

he watched as billows of joy drifted through the latch 

until a boy chasing a soccer ball came to the gate and  

waved him on - petulant, dubious, rebellion puffed his

sparrowed chest and dark eyes dancing he quickly 

lifted the latch and ran onto the red rousted dust 

as fuses sprang and all was glinting metallic,  

a boy arm, a shower of red rock, a sneakered foot,

that soccer ball, all collateral damage,

scar on the land – 

this now gone boy 

once safe behind the grated gate 

now mixing

with the red dust.

 New Myth  5-29-12