Pieta Poem by John F. McCullagh

There were reports of a shooting
Someone called Nine -one -one.
Another young man dead-
all because of a gun.
I heard a woman weeping
as I ran to the scene.
She held her dead son in her arms
She held the death of his dreams.
Dusk was yielding to darkness
on this unholy night.
As she keened for her child
in the yellow streetlight.
As the warmth left his body
She refused my pleas to yield
As if holding him to her
made his dying not real.
The thought crossed my mind,
as I heard his mother moan,
That I had seen this once before,
as a sculpture in stone.