Sweep the streets clean

Sweep the streets clean

Smash me and grab

Disappear me

Without a trace

There is nothing to see here

So much for police procedurals

There is no panopticon

Even social media lets me down

A refugee in Wonderland

All children are lost

Some are never found

Unless caught up in traffic

Off-track in transit

Burrowed underground

In a sleeper cell

Too small to be detected

By the senses that are not sensors

Or even censors.

When it comes to the innocent

There is always impropriety

In the quality of care

Unless we shine a light

Into the shadows,

Fill in the cracks

Too many small things fall into,

Never to be seen again

Or to be mentioned

In the same breath

As the blessed and privileged

Enough

To sail through

Unaffected,

Until they are caught up

In something bigger

Than themselves.

Their humanity exposed

To be just as fragile

Their blood spilt

As freely

Their terror just as real

Too many lost souls

Plastered on a wall

A gallery of sadness

There but for the grace…

In black-and-white

A still photograph

Of me.