Third World Girl Poem by Dennis Lambert

Little third world girl,
The bones and skin of you
Lie dying in the dust

I see your eyes, wide and hollow
On my screen.
Do you know of me?

The black flies buzz
And move about your face,
And you no longer brush them away.

For now you are waiting in the dust,
And do not feel the flies
And do not feel the hunger... anymore

You are waiting in the dust, little girl
And you are looking at me
From the other side of the world.

If I could draw you from the tube
Into this room carpeted and clean,
Paneled and pictured,

What would you think of me?
Would you thank me?
Would you hate me?

Or, would you simply waste away?
Too lost and weak to hold my world—
My oh-so-civilized clutter:

These leather bound books
Of Shakespeare and Twain,
These disks of music and movement,

These Polach and Picasso prints,
These calculators and cell phones,
These game cubes and computers.

This high definition, surround sound,
Color screem, wide-screen,
Flat-screen, miracle of technology

Can it resurrect you from
The Great Darkness
That will be your dissolution?

How easily, with one God-like finger,
Can I bring this screen to darkness
And to silence... as if you never were.

This could be, were it not
For my midnight dreams,
Where the shadow you appears

To ask the unspoken question
Whispering within me—
Whispering why

You are there and I am here-
So very far apart
Upon this great blue and ancient sphere.