stranger danger

 
 He died on the street outside my door
 Clutching his chest falling down    slow
 Screaming for help   no assistance we gave
 Left him dying, writhing in pain
  
 Hardened by street crime  we assumed a scam
 A gang to come running when we stepped outside
 Little boys with no respect for elder or wiser
 Did they cause? Did we cause? The life we have to live.
  
 The boy, fourteen years and 3 months
 Post mortem revealed a heart broken
 By the fear of strangers who lock themselves in
 And don’t engage humanely with any ‘cept kin
  
 The pain of the mother screened close up
 despairing of the lack of help.
 I recognised her grief stricken face
 as the lady from the corner shop
  
 We should’ve known him
 twenty years or more ago we would have
 chatted with him daily watching him grow up
 we ignore the young, and we do so at our peril.