John Budan
Merit Badges
Through a frost-covered window, a group of well-meaning Boy Scouts deposit wrapped packages on broken porch steps. They have come to deliver their broken, abused, or no-longer-desired toys to the needy. Not wanting my mother to share my humiliation, I sneak out at midnight and gather the items. While threading through the heavy snow towards a dumpster, I try to imagine a life without poverty.
bubble lights
reveal
an evicted spider
out on a limb
of a Yule tree
About the Author
John Budan has published widely. He lived in France where he found his alter ego Guignol in Paris at the Jardin du Luxembourg.