No Goodwill Goobye Poem by John Sensele

No goodwill goodbye
Grins at hunger and thirst flying nearby
To purloin peals of laughter
Coercing a dainty daughter

Into a teenage marriage
Brewed in the poverty porridge
Tongues last tasted aeons ago
As the flight of the crime cargo

Taxied nearby
When the newly married daughter beef couldn't buy
Following a night of gender based violence
Whacking her spartan silence

Into sealing lips that family secrets couldn't utter
Lest hips would sleep in a nearby gutter
If slabs of truth evaporated into the public domain
To heap blame and shame on the family name

Long concealed in peeled pips
Kept in check by wintry whips
Sauntering in the wilderness of a tropical sky
In the absence of a goodwill goodbye.