Grabbing my eye

the first act

A boy-man strolled the street

babbling with a friend

blanks in his hands

fondling his zippered pants

a child with a toy

a jewel that if lost

life would be lost

and maybe the world

the second act

"Help! Help!"

the girl screamed

as the baby cried

squirming in her hands

prying, struggling

slipping cell by cell

to an empty wagon-red

while her mother yelled

"Hurry! Hurry!" angrily 

toward someone to kill:

her child

her man

her very self instead

as she speedily walked 

so far ahead

the third act

Kilned-women browned

by a woman pottery-flowered

stood exposed without frowns

their vaginae guarded and sound

behind their cloistering hands

as if fear trapped them there

in their Third World trekking