Richard

Richard

throws himself against the walls, mute,
not a mark on him, face perfectly formed,
eyes that gulp light, legs without scars,
straight and lively, he could sit
in a classroom clutch a sliver of pencil,
poke the girl in the seat ahead, belt
a baseball across grass, no lack of grace
in him, yet wild as a moth fluttering
bright-blind on the sidewalk, crafty
as an animal, the way he bounds around
counters, doors always locked or he'll vanish,
grab up children on the floor, hug them
the way a murderer hugs, mind like air,
normal till three when fever thrashed
his brain and his mother saw it as a portent,
for she sinned in her dreams, putting
a strange man in her mouth, forgetting
the boy, breath going in and out
of his body in the night-lighted room