Paul M. Strohm’s most recent poem to appear here was “A Man Like Me” (January 2019).
Bodacious Pity
By Paul M. Strohm
This occurred sometime in the 21st century,
the important characters are all fictitious,
no one’s real name is even mentioned
The heroine is found working in the circus
slagging for the guy selling sideshow tickets,
but he does pay her so she gets time off.
She is attached by emotional commitments
as there is a child and a ’62 Volvo,
both a momentary sense of security.
They still have the Volvo but the child
is taken off one night by gypsies,
fruitless searching drives each to madness.
He is mad at her and she is chewing grass
and pissing in the baptism fonts of churches,
suffering distracts her from feeling bad.
In the dark night of parental grief
she is destroyed by ethical expectations,
none of which she had before the pills.
He however has no conscious memory
of constructive parenting values,
has no sleepless nights of destructive guilt.
Time slimes both their torpid judgements
for who is morally responsible,
primitive compulsion insures they’re fed.
Each character is attracted to another,
intensions recoil in horror to the other
so bit by bit they victimize the Volvo.
If instead of a human child—a barking dog
tragedy, without the interior weeping
would have compromised our bodacious pity.