Baggage

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.