A poor and loathesome begger
\nThrough devious channels
\nPut his filthy long-fingers
\nOnto the head
\nOf a young girls golden curls<\/p>\n
“You are my child,” he muttered
\nBlindly, his rheumy eyes cauled over
\n“You were birthed in the ancient
\nFires.”<\/p>\n
She didn’t cry
\nEven when his rotten, toothless
\nMouth
\nMoved enough to her ear
\nSo that she could feel his whiskers
\nAnd his hot breath<\/p>\n
“Can you keep a secret?” He asked
\nHis voice trembled with his demand <\/p>\n
She nodded and only a mute whimper
\nShowed that she was more afraid
\nThan he<\/p>\n
“Can you keep a promise?” He looked her
\nFull in the face
\nHis brown, bloodshot eyes
\nScanning her large blue ones<\/p>\n
Both sets were filled with tears<\/p>\n
Finally she made her lips
\nMove and murmured, “yes”.<\/p>\n
He reached into a satchel
\nThat could have been made
\nOf most anything<\/p>\n
And put into her tiny,
\nPlump hands
\nTwo golden clasps <\/p>\n
She felt that something had happened
\nThe clasp vibrated in her hands<\/p>\n
The begger turned and left her
\nAll ferocity now
\nGone from him
\nAnd he shambled
\nWith broken shoulders
\nAnd never even
\nGlanced back<\/p>\n
The girl opened up her fingers
\nHer face lit up with gold <\/p>\n
She murmured, ‘yes’<\/p>\n
And put the clasps in the
\nBottom of her jacket pocket
\nAnd skipped down the street
\nWhere her friends were
\nAlready at play <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A poor and loathesome begger Through devious channels Put his filthy long-fingers Onto the head Of a young girls golden curls “You are my child,” he muttered Blindly, his rheumy eyes cauled over “You were birthed in the ancient Fires.” She didn’t cry Even when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[193,15,10,53,52],"class_list":["post-4279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-uncategorized","tag-193","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-starklight-press","tag-virginia-carraway-stark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4303,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions\/4303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}