The woman stands
Arms full of grocery bags
In front of a store
She doesn’t move
She is frozen
Those that pass her
Look to try and see
What her far away stare
Is focused upon
What horror she is witnessing
But what they don’t see
Is that it isn’t
An image her stricken eyes
Have fallen upon
But the absence of it
Alone the mother stands
Her child is nowhere
Gone from sight
Disappeared into a world
Beyond the safety of a mother’s touch
Where there is no play
Only a harsh reality
Of survival and death
She wonders
How could this happen
What did I do
To deserve this punishment
The statue begins
To regain life
As a scream burst forth
From petrified lungs
Dying for release
The bags fall
As her arms reach out
For something that
Is no longer there
Her child is gone
In just a blink of an eye
She has vanished
The mother screams
Over and over again
For her child
But there is no answer
Just the stares of the passersby
She falls to her knees
Her child’s favorite foods
Lay strewn about
The mother of a missing child
She hears nothing
Sees nothing
But her child
Before she was gone
Remembering that last look
The last moment before
Destiny was changed
Taking her baby away from her
So she sits on her knees
Her arms held out to nothing
With her child’s favorite foods
But no child
No one stops to help
Because they don’t understand
What it means to lose
A part of them
But now she does
The wailing statue
Waiting with empty arms
And a horrible plea
For a missing child to come back
And never again leave