The Wandering Child

Sometimes, the wandering child is a broken, old woman
who has been

wandering

                                      for thirty years.

Wandering, winding, looking for the lost places

of her childhood.

She goes home and finds only debris.

Broken pieces of relics,

                                                  old, bent places

of ruggedness, the haggard remains of lost youth

after plunderers for booties of war

                                     faded into dust

or the city faded into the past.