Light trickles in through window grime;
The dust dances in its wake,
Swirling and swimming
Like the very cosmos.
A lone child stands in the center of it all
Savoring the silence, the savage bite
Of splinters in his tender feet
Praying for the distant day
When this life, this town is just as real
as the nebulous clouds of particulate finery
that dance before his tear-lined eyes.