​Runaway


In downtown Santa Cruz
a tribe of runaway youths
drift along uniformed streets
or sit in doorways, like injured pigeons
wingless and grounded.
 
A few of them beg while others
exist as tongue-tied bandages
on emotional wounds.
They stare with the frosted glaze
of winter’s windows
on broken-down homes
hopeless and filthy.
 
Runaways make their way
from mornings to evenings
and back to mornings
connected to one another
like seconds to minutes
and each moment’s lost time
will never be retrieved.
 
Some are provocative beggars
shouting derogatory insults
as if entitled
to a hardworking person’s cash.
Others accept their poverty
in silence
as if their blood is polluted with it.
 
A teenage girl
in shabby clothes
sits cross-legged
head to her knees
hands over her face
dirty brown hair knotted, clumped.
She exists as a dry well.
 
A beaten and bruised boy
of fourteen
assorted purple scars
across his impassive face
chain smokes used butts
he picks from the sidewalks.
 
The Alpha male
a gruff tattooed boy
in his mid-teens
throws dice against a wall
while speaking gibberish
to his younger crew
all the while catcalling
at women passing by,
his explosive arrogance
unapproachable as landmines.  
 
And each hour
these children grow older
into their derailed lives,
grow older against the unspeakable
of what made them run.