long ago, decades to be sure,
on a cold philadelphia night,
as the darkness enveloped a city road,
except for the angels keeping watch over the stars,
a car comes to a stop, a person exits
and opens the hood to the trunk,
a box is pulled from the bed,
a precious cargo once alive now dead.

In the woods next to the road,
by the muskrat traps and rabbit warren,
the boy in the box is placed, arms crossed,
naked except wrapped in a patterned shroud,
his battered body is left.

Hair clipped, face and chest bruised.

His body malnourished, his soul unloved.

He will never know the joy of life, or the laughter of living.

His killer goes free,
perhaps tormented in hell and silenced in life,
perhaps not...

The box is found perhaps two or three days,
before the police are called.

A peeping tom, or a high school jock,
claiming to be scared of the boy in the box
they left the child there
among the muskrat traps and rabbit warren.

His body is laid to rest,
by the officers who needed to know his name,
haunted by dreams of the nameless child,
crying, battered, hungry and cold.

Even today hunting down the killer of the boy in the box.

Perhaps you will shed a tear,
or hold your own child near.

A precious gift, neglected and beaten,
disposed with the trash along a deserted road,
where the angels were too busy keeping watch over the stars above.