The Difference
As a boy, he’d crouch like an Olympian
in the tenebrous belly of the garbage pit,
shielding the lantern’s nub of flame,
and stroking intermittently the hockey stick
he couldn’t see for darkness by his boot.
And when the denizens, bald-tailed,
all crept foolishly afoot,
he willed the lantern’s mantle fulgent,
closed his fist about the shaft,
and rising judged the sulphurous junkscape:
Hades descended […]
