Pitching A Wish Poem by peauladd huy

Far – far there.
Beneath the grime caking and staining
marred deep those toddling figures, there’s a diamond
dream being cut & polished & sized to prong
up to catch a share of those rays. Is so bad to want it all?
For now, what he dreams is a distant
vision from the mound of others’ throw-aways. He’s seen and known
things go quickly in the heat
wafting up the constant decay. Life at the price of the city’s garbage: it’s hard
not to get used to the putrid
kilz-ed in the sense of all smells. He can only see and hold on
hoping – maybe along the way someone in the family’s able

to show a fraction of the dream while tiptoeing over the city’s high wall – the grass is greener,
trimmed in gold and diamonds at each begin of the day. Many a time, he’s seen for himself
what he was born into was long warped from another life. How depressing
belief’s paralyzing one so young. You wouldn’t believe he’s fifteen
in that poor stunted body. Maybe eight at most
for a body that size. His dream is old
already: listen, he’s repeating wishfully
as if the same magic couldn’t have come again
in his lifetime, by no means conventionally
anyway, for a teenage that age – he didn’t speak of learner’s permit, hip-hop
boppers, skateboards or skinny jeans. Whatever the usual teenage
fleeting stuff. Just to be

educated enough to live away from the city dumps,
for himself and the family. Just like others,
nothing special. Shoes, clothes, a home, and food

decent enough. The way things ought to be: don’t think
for a moment that it couldn’t be you.