Gone

Gone
*******

We are going to that man's house,
we don't want to of course,
but after much discourse with the children's service director,
we have no choice.

We don't know him,
Mum and dad never spoke of him.
But apparently he's a hermit.
Apparently he hasn't left his manor in 10 years,
and now here's
his brothers three kids, knocking on his door.
We were dropped off at the street of this drive,
told to go under the bridge,
and take a right at the fork in the road.
No one to help us carry our load,
my little siblings struggling and tired,
sadness and fear mired in their scrunched up faces.

Of all the places to be sent...this is it??


We walked underneath the foreboding overpass,
moss and grass seemed to grow from the stone
and the cold lack of welcome chilled us to the bone.
But we knew, by passing through this gateway to the unknown,
the life we had before would be gone...