Rush Hour
by Dallas Lee
In the shadow
of the elevated freeway
on a littered dirt slope
between boarded storefronts
a skeletal male dog
stands spread-legged beside
a boy five, maybe six,
sucking the thumb
of his left hand
while with his right
he masturbates the beast,
oblivious to we who
cannot help but see
as we creep along this
short-cut home.
Had that child been
drowning, on fire,
quaking with seizures,
stabbed or bullet-riddled
and bleeding to death,
fallen and broken
or just lost, sobbing
and afraid, any one of us –
any soul – would have
known what to do.
About the Author
Dallas Lee is a former journalist (The Associated Press, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The Waco News-Tribune, and Missions USA), and a retired speechwriter. His poetry has been published by Connotations Press, The Cortland Review, The Boiler Journal, and Starry Night Review (SNR), and he has contributed essays and commentary to the online journal LikeTheDew.com. He is the author of The Cotton Patch Evidence, the Story of Clarence Jordan and the Koinonia Farm Experiment (Harper & Row), a book that chronicles events leading to the creation of Habitat for Humanity in Sumter County Georgia. He is a native of Graham, Texas, a graduate of Baylor University, and lives in Charlotte NC with his wife Mary and their aging sweetheart of a Yorkie-poo, Ruthie.