The Poor Boy and the Poor, Poor Joe*

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The little boy, not more than that, took out

His gun to hunt for family’s food.  The dirt

Patch farm was even worse than dirt.  Its sand

Was sand dune sand.  The crops could only flirt

With it, so he was sent out with his rifle to

Bring home the flesh his family’s table lacked.

The fish they had enough that they could chew

And swallow, but this one day cards were stacked

Against him.  Woodrow shot a Poor Joe dead

Except . . . it crumpled horribly.  It fell

In quivered crash.  That turned his heart to shred

And shred.  He knew the meaning of God’s Hell.

  He told his mother, I will never blast

    A beast again.  That Poor Joe was his last.

*Poor Joe is Florida Cracker vernaclar for a Great Blue Heron