Never be a hero

I stood by the pavement edge reflecting
Insouciantly on my half day's work
And what was to follow as I waited  
For my boy at the end of the school day.
Other parents- mothers, younger than me
Were bunched, conversing, by the railings-
Some with younger children.
 
I noted vaguely a shout then scream.
The first came from the roadside opposite,  
The other from a mother behind me
And,in unison, a car nearing at
A little over the speed limit.
 
Something smallish was rushing at my back.
A boy of about three passed so close by
That I was able to put out my hand
And grab the arm of a soon struggling child,
Totally instinctively.
 
Only when the car had disappeared
Was I able to calculate, with horror,
That the child certainly would have been killed
But for my arm and hand extended
With no plan or foresight.
 
The sequence of events became clearer.
From across the road, the father had called
To his young son. He was a known junkie
Of thirty-five, hardly going on eight.
The mother's scream came as the child broke free
And she realised, in dread and terror,
The possible consequences.
 
Near tragedy turned comic. The mother
Opened up her assault on the father-
First verbally, then on head and body
With great blows from her laden shopping bag.
My son emerged and we set off, passing
The mother, who thanked me effusively
Before continuing the battering.
 
A happy ending? Not at all for me.
Torment set it. At first came the 'what-ifs'.
I might have been much too engrossed in thought
To react, even if impulsively.
The child might have been just out of reach.
How would I have felt on seeing his mangled
Bloody body on the road?
 
It got worse. Each time I saw on my street,
Waiting for a bus, a mother and child-
She occupied with the phone in one hand,
A large bag or push chair in the other
And the child skipping along the pavement.
The alarm returned. The child would be just
Too far away to stop its sudden jump
Into the road in front of a car.
 
I had to bear it. A remonstration
With the mother could lead to conflct
Of unpredictably savage outcome
When a solitary and unknown man
On the street is commonly perceived
As a potential predator.
 
I now avoid the road at those times when
Mothers and toddlers are often about.
It is not my business to prevent
Fatal accidents to every child.
But can I live easily with that shrug?