So I was Watching One of those News Documentary on Poverty when

by Rathanak Michael Keo

This blonde boy, maybe seven or eight—
Presents his dad the skeleton of an umbrella
there are no traces
left of skin for him to imagine what color it was new—
but he closes his eyes and tries anyways.
Arms crooked bend their way too close
To his face;
so his dad tells him to put it away before he harms himself—the
younger brother maybe four, climbs
one foot at a time into a trash compacter
digs up a worn out girls polka-dot hat, and quickly tries it on
modeling proudly for daddy. 

While watching American children
Heap thru trash on television 
I can’t help but think about
Cambodian children who I've seen rummaged thru trash
like old lost photo albums to please their parents.

Down at the market a young infant
Refused to be breastfed on the floor
His elder brother, no more than five begs strangers for money.
At Watt Phnom known for its thousand staircases climb
sprouted unlucky grandmothers whose sight was lost to time, sudden blindness syndrome, or landmines 
waiting patiently for the charity of tourist
while a parade of young black-haired children ran after folks who wouldn’t shoo
them—
in the littered streets of the city short long-limbed sons and daughters
feed their parents by plucking
the neck of bottles from
streets like watercress,
placing them into a satchel.     

A commercial passes me by and
I wish I could do more than poetry/more than just giving out money/
more than wanting to be a teacher/AA activist/poet/ lover/mosaic advocate/multi-cultural basher/
shit-fuck.

I take time to imagine, how would these children paint happiness?

Would it all be the same? or would they still be separated by tectonic plates, language, skin color?
I always thought that happiness was abstract.      
            a splash of red that could be mistaken for eyes, a cut of yellow bleak like a horizon screams from right to left,
            and finally green spreading apart
               on the canvas like a kiss…the stoplight is universal
                        but I can’t picture happiness. 

So I changed the channel for good,
Wishing my campus’s student republicans*
Would just do me a favor; fall into homelessness, and lose a testicle
Because I’m tired of wishing I could give my life to end poverty.

*CCSU Republicans flyer read: universal healthcare is like waiting in line for the dmv: who wants

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