Thursday, May 10, 2012

so much for fate, right?


the kids are all decked up
at the function to commemorate
another successful year running
more altered fates

he stares back through unkempt
dusty hair, eyes charming
with a look of reckless
vulnerability disarming

hidden with a
contemptuous smile
same as the other kids
in other pictures in the files

amongst the many dated
record-shots taken in the streets
there’s one that’s from
a happy riverside picnic

beside the smiling kids
standing by the jetty ramp
in orange life-jackets, is a banner
that says de-addiction camp

he’s here now, talking
on his cell phone
absent-mindedly taking
a cup that someone’s thrown

to the dustbin. smart in his
faded denims and check shirt brown
he works as a computer technician
at an upmarket print studio in town

we walk past the pictures put up
that the kids here now have drawn
it’s true for all of us, he says
any way, i too, could’ve gone


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