A little girl
Barely old enough to dress herself
Or to know evil
Is stolen from her bed

And then raped through the night and
The next day, and then is freed
To the grave, her bogeyman burying
Her alive to smother in muffled
Hope the monster has gone

The family panics, despairs, reels
Lists
Her name and face posted
Waved, distributed to Justice
Everywhere alert
But nothing from the President
The Supreme Court
The compassionate Congress

Someone posts a website
Find The Little Girl Dot Com
All Proceeds Go To The Tireless
Search, We Promise

And Justice finds out it is a fraud
The love of stolen charity

Beneath the posters
The have-you-seen-my-child pleas
Tacked to the board at Wal-Mart
Where no one stops
To look for anything
That doesn’t resemble a bargain
Beneath the Amber signs
Stapled to curbside poles
Holding phone lines full of
Chatter about anything else
From room to room

We hear that there are more
Important things that call us
To attention
Than the trivialities of
Gay marriage
Abortion
Government Spending
Bailouts of imbalanced
Budgets and Graspers
Taking credit for what
They do not deserve

But never, NEVER
Is the abduction of
Children, the rape and
Murder and Live-interment
Of little girls
The MOST IMPORTANT THING
Tell a gay marriage activist
That gay marriage is NOT important
Go ahead, I dare you
And you’ll see that Amber is not
A color anyone cares to see
But they’ll see red over your
Alleged homophobia

And they’ll see green if you bring up
Tax cuts
They’ll see red, white, blue if
You mention the expansion of
War in Afghanistan
They’ll see hate if you aver
Child abuse and abortion
Are interbred “If I could kill
You then why can’t I smack you now?”
The despised offspring of moral incest

They’ll see blue states if
You cede them control of the
Census
And if you don’t see black
The right way then
You’re the wrong color white
Ignoring The Highest Virtue
In All The Land

They’ll trump YOUR BIG ISSUE --
Whatever it is --
With Poverty, with The Increasing Gap
Between Rich and Poor– the be all and end all
Of Social Vices – rebuking your provincial
Greed, your millionaire capitalist indifference
To Ghettos and Slums
Forgetting the savior said
“The poor you’ll always
Have with you.”

But little girls and women
Are not always with us
Shackled, stolen, sent off
To sex camps and consigned
To the Holocaust of the porn
Industry, slaves in some tropical
Paradise for men swollen, turgid
With Cash
Or buried alive with a Teddy
Or Pooh Bear
Or given a necklace of blood or
Gripped by fingers smudging life
With casual forensic evidence

This is never important enough
To fill the President’s teleprompter
He’ll talk about $$$ and $$$
And more $$$
And never EVER mention that
ANOTHER little girl (or boy)
Has met the monster under the bed that
We dismiss with a kiss
It’s only a dream
I have a dream, Mommy
Mommy’s right here
The nightlight never
Bright enough


©Bill Gnade/2009. All rights reserved.

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