Reluctant Remittance Man
You hung about street corners
freckle-faced and hungry,
little boy in need of
scrubbing and loving.
We took you home
into our hearts and cupboards
until, flinging curses, you left
with your young friends.
All these years later
you're still hanging about street corners,
dirty, ill and hungry, too old for scrubbing
and loving isn't enough.
c2001Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Originally published in Muse of Fire, June 1999
Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a former psychology researcher/writer/editor/lecturer who has turned to writing short stories and poetry. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been published in numerous anthologies, journals, and internet magazines including The Tule Review, Phoebe, Visions International, Manzanita Quarterly, Midwest Poetry Review, Nanny Fanny, mélange journal, FZQ. She co-edited River Voices: Poets of Butte, Shasta, Tehama and Trinity Counties, California. Her latest chapbook is Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer and she recently edited Labyrinth: Poems & Prose. She lives on a creek in rural northern California, USA, with her husband and two cats.
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