Starving Man’s Neighbors Let Him Die

 

City workers reported a man, weak and crawling

on his apartment floor,

 

Desperately eating only bread for months,

unpaid water bill,

Legs the size of toy clarinets.

 

One neighbor said,

“The city acted correctly.”

 

He was still young,

Could’ve taken any job to feed himself.

 

Another neighbor, who played with the dead man

when they were children

Said he was filled with regret.

 

Swallows fly out broken window,

green bottleflies in their beaks.

 

 

12 October 2007

 

 

[Published in Mantra Winds: Poems 2004-2010.

© 2010 by Jim Cohn.]