I liked to think
I would have liked
to have been raised by bears.
Of course I remember
the Northern Irish 'Hen-house Boy'
'hitting the headlines' in 1952.
I fantasised about him.
I wanted to be his brother.
(I don't know what's the matter
with you, said my mother
after every minor punishment
and censure I received at school.)
A long time later,
I read a poem about him
by a worshipped Northern Irish poet.
Its second line is 'A yolk of light'.
Oh no! I shouted, hurling down the book
with its razorly-crafted lines about a boy
'sharp-faced as new moons'. Aaaaargh!
Predation!
A humdrum book about 'Wild' children that I read
yesterday praises this poem for its sensitivity.
Goodreads
(where you can read my outrageous outrage)
is full of praise for many others, too.
All I find in it is poetic
exquisitely-literary exploitation.
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