There are times

Penny Parry

This poem is about a fourteen year old boy I am about to try to test. He's ... well, he is who the poem says.

There are times
when a child seems
so far
into the space I cannot reach
that I try
to rearrange the world
to cut into that void
of cold, ungiving space
some call self-protection,
and my hand burns
with the cold
and my arm pulls back
to the warmth of my own self
pulled only by my own recollection
of the cold I have known
in the space
that seemed to belong to me alone.

There are times
when a child seems
too close
to the space I can reach
and I try
to resist the world
that cuts into that void
of cold, ungiving space
I call self-protection,
and my eyes turn
from his cold
and my arm moves back
to the chill of my own self
drawn to my own recollection
of this cold I have known
and the space
that seems to belong to me alone.

Journal of Child and Youth Care 5(2) 51-52