Iron-cold fireplace

I just read about a convict 

     and think of you, 

    father of my friend--

another boy raised 

in an iron-cold fireplace

who keeps winding up 

in iron-cold places 

     as if jail means a home 

     you can always count on. 

I don't know what to call a boy 

with small fists knocking on doors 

for food then carried off to strangers 

till parents get him back 

for awhile.  

I think of how you bludgeon the world 

     with your sweet looks and mind with wings  

     but it jackhammered your life 

     anyway.  

What amazing good/bad luck 

to have it all 

and nothing 

at the same time.  

I don't know what to call a grown man 

with 14 families in his head and

no God around to help--you sure learned that, 

father of my friend.

    

     Prayers not answered in a world

     that cannot make things right. 

You hold up your hand 

and make a circle between your thumb 

     and forefinger to show me 

     in that tiny patch of sky 

    a hundred thousand galaxies.

What God, you ask, can care about all that?