IN the gray dust before a frail gray shed, <br />By a board fence obscenely chalked in red, <br />A gray creek willow, left from country days, <br />Flickers pallid in the haze. <br /> <br />Beside the gutter of the unpaved street, <br />Tin cans and broken glass about his feet, <br />And a brown whisky bottle, singled out <br />For play from prosier crockery strewn about, <br />Twisting a shoestring noose, a Polack's brat <br />Joylessly torments a cat. <br /> <br />His dress, some sister's cast-off wear, <br />Is rolled to leave his stomach bare. <br />His arms and legs with scratches bleed; <br />He twists the cat and pays no heed. <br />He mauls her neither less nor more <br />Because her claws have raked him sore. <br />His eyes, faint-blue and moody, stare <br />From under a pale shock of hair. <br />Neither resentment nor surprise <br />Lights the desert of those eyes -- <br />To hurt and to be hurt; he knows <br />All he will know on earth, or need to know. <br /> <br />But there, beneath his willow-tree, <br />His tribal, tutelary tree, <br />The tortured cat across his knee, <br />With hate, perhaps, a threat, maybe, <br />Lithuania looks at me.<br /><br />Willa Sibert Cather<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/street-in-packingtown/
