The Loss of a Son

by John Grey

To you, he is still the baby

with the head of curly black hair.

To everyone else,

he’s the town pariah.

Villagers come to the door

and you're wondering what

could possibly be their purpose

on such a dark, rainy night.

Did he steal another boy’s bicycle?

Was he involved in a playground fight?

They ask you if he lives here,

say his name slowly,

take you back to the day

when you first came up with it.

You almost expect them to preface it with,

"If it's a boy we'll call him . . ."

The frenzied mob descend the cellar steps,

wielding axes and crucifixes,

garlic flowers and long, sharp pointed sticks.

Loud shrieks can be heard from the cellar.

But when weren’t there loud shrieks

from the cellar.

Suddenly, your boy stumbles up the stairs,

mouth bubbling blood,

face as pale as a yellow sac spider,

and a stake sticking out of his rib cage.

He kicks and struggles

as two burly men hold him down

and the town butcher raises his chopper high.

You always said he’d end up

like his old man.

For two hundred years,

you’ve been saying it.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River and South and The Alembic. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters, and Between Two Fires, are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White all Review, and Cantos.