Little Boy With Fish On A String

I see a suckling –

Sucking on a piece of string

Silently staring into space

Or, listening to hungry flies

Buzzing over his pasty face

Blue under flickering fluorescent

While the mother shakes the feeding

Bottle of hot water with sugar.

Inside a makeshift cardboard

House under the bridge

Where murky waters grumble

Like the stomach of the little one

Who left early to fish live fish

Instead he found three dead ones

Now hanging limp on hisstring –

Eyes glazed.