Budoy*

* inspired by a news article I read two weeks ago in CNN.

Under the plastic ear

Where two decades

And overeager chubby fingers

Have chipped the paint,

There is a chink, a tiny crack;

And on the string that you pull

To release a melancholic lullaby

There is a speck of red turned brown by time

That tells a story from a lifetime ago,

 

When a thriftshop toy dog

With cartoon eyes,

Bruised a man with a thriftshop tie,

Who hurt the little girl

With the goofy smile.

He swung his fist and hit her lips,

Drawing first blood,

As red as his desire, as dark as his sin.

And she smashed his face again with

The silent plastic yellow dog.

Over and over,

Drawing on ancient angers

And the righteous indignation

Of her Treasury of Bible Stories Classic Edition.

“We killed him”,

She imagined herself saying,

In the early evening news,

To the news reporter with the big hair

And glazed smile.

 

But he slinked away,

For that night, defeated.

 

And when she says to you

That Budoy makes her feels safe,

Now you know she’s not just talking about,

Lullabies sad, sleepy and sweet.