Sylph-like it appeared fashioned from air,
Emaciated, immobile,
Parsimonious coins, littered alms,
From sympathetic passers by!

Protruding through carapace of skin,
Was a bony abacus of ribs!
A frame where on to progressively count,
Morsels of bread and faint heartbeats
With each passing moment turned,
Fainter and fainter still!
Withered arms too feeble to beg,
The drugged look was somnolent,
Inherent will to live, expunged,
Hunger overwhelmed, almost erased!
Did the fixed stare discern in proximity?
The adroit reaper of breath!
Fanatical in its sombre mission,
Notoriously vigilant!
Face of starvation is morbid,
As pitiful as the plight of this waif,
An abandoned victim of penury,
An atrophied human wraith!
Poverty is, stoically real,
A universally ironic faux pas,
Hunger its tacit accomplice,
The assassin unobserved!
Bread is man-made commodity,
Hence, a luxury!
Excess sparingly shared,
Misnomer of generosity!

Rations in certainty do not extend,
The onerous path to the grave,
And sustenance never assures,
An immortal state!
Else the bleak Styx can be,
Fearlessly paddled by,
Clutching a loaf and crumbs that are,
Imprudently brushed aside!

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