Losing

•

The uniformed security guard
said he couldn’t help it,
couldn’t change anything,
he was just there to see that
the eviction went smoothly,
which it didn’t.

You’d think they could have
waited till after Christmas.
Somehow the kid had managed
to save enough from his subsidized job
to buy presents, if not pay rent.
He’d even tried to wrap them.

He didn’t know how to fight it
and his social worker was on
extended vacation. All his damaged
life had been planned by others,
around his circumstances,
beyond his control.

And when he saw all ruined
by the whirlwind sweeping through
his story, he let it take hold of him too

and opened the window and began
throwing his gifts into the street,
where passersby picked them up
and walked away with them.
It was that kind
of neighborhood.

As he flung them he was shouting,
"that one was for my mother,
that one was for my sister, that one …"

And throwing them out the window,
that was for himself.