Efrain

Street kid,
your pants are too big for you,
your shoes don't match,
your t-shirt is grimy,
and you need a haircut.
Under your fingernails are dirty.
You whine like a 3-year-old
until someone treats you like
the young man you are.
You asked me for money,
you asked me for my jacket.
I was going to give it to you,
but you wanted me to keep it
after I explained that I
didn't have another one.
I wish you had taken it though.
You work all day and sometimes
go to school at night.
Some of your friends are addicted
to glue. Actually, a lot of
them are. They don't live long.
You have flowers and saints
in your house, and mattresses,
blankets and radios. Maybe you
stole them. Maybe poverty
stole your family. Maybe others' apathy
stole your future. Street kid,
you pray for the world,
a world that doesn't even
know you exist.

Spectacle

It's OK to stare.
My white skin is already burning
under your glaring Sesotho sun
even though I already put on sunscreen
that costs more than all the food you ate this week,
twice.