Boy at the Paterson Falls by Toi Derricotte

Boy at the Paterson Falls

 

I am thinking of that boy who bragged about the day he threw

     a dog over and watched it struggle to stay upright all

     the way down.

I am thinking of that rotting carcass on the rocks,

and the child with such power he could call to a helpless

     thing as if he were its friend, capture it, and think of

     the cruelest punishment.

It must have answered some need, some silent screaming in

     a closet, a motherless call when night came crashing;

it must have satisfied, for he seemed joyful, proud, as if he

     had once made a great creation out of murder.

That body on the rocks, its sharp angles, slowly took the shape of

     what was underneath, bones pounded, until it lay at the bottom

     like a scraggly rug.

Nothing remains but memory—and the suffering of those who

     would walk into the soft hands of a killer for a crumb of bread.