198 - Ring-Worm Boy

Ring-Worm Boy
By W. Dow Edgerton

"Jesus stretched out his hand
and touched him… "

He was older than my five or six, and lived
on the edge of our neighborhood. We saw
him first from a distance. He looked
to us like he came from the moon or someplace
stranger. He was tall and slender with long
supple arms. His head was shaved clean.
Over it he wore a kind of cap
made of the same stuff as my mother's stockings.
He seemed pale compared to us, perhaps because
of that naked head, or perhaps he was kept
indoors. Who knows? In his face, his eyes
looked much too large.

We all stood silent, wondering what this was.
Then someone said, "ring-worm, he's got
ring-worm." I didn't know that word.
Most of us didn't. It could have meant anything-
but just the sound was menacing enough: ring-worm,
ring-worm. It smacked of the dark and things
that live there, the sort of creatures lurking
just out of sight in storm drains, who gobbled up
rolling money and toys and where We wanted to play
but were sternly warned not to. It was said that certain
brave boys had climbed down and come back
to tell of it. Maybe this moon-child was one.
The storm drain did this to him and left him
bleached and hairless, like a sailor swallowed by a whale.
Someone began to yell, "the Ring-Worm Boy!"
And we all began to yell, "the Ring-Worm Boy!"
And we all ran away.

W. Dow Edgerton is Assistant Professor of Minstry at Chicago Theological Seminary. Articles by Mr. Edgerton have appeared previously in THEOLOGY TODAY, but this is the first time we have had the pleasure of publishing his poetry.

198 - Ring-Worm Boy

Always we watched for him. Always we ran.
Always we shouted the alarm. Always.
Never was there a dare to touch him, never
was there a dare to go near, never
among us the nerve. We might turn over
the rock where the black widows lived, but never
did we turn toward him. He was more dangerous
to us than spiders.

The Ring-Worm boy had a friend, a girl.
We were afraid of her, as well, for surely
some of his power had rubbed off on her.
Why she was unafraid we didn't think to ask.
Still I can see them, the two of them, after
we had run away once. At a safe distance
I turned and looked: there they stood
together on the sidewalk,
he with his arms dangling sadly,
like a willow, she reaching out
to pat his thin shoulder, saying
words I couldn't hear.

I shade my eyes sometimes now, and look
toward the light to see who might be there.
Sometimes it is those two, ringed brightly,
their outlines soft in the shining air.
She stretches out her hand;
she reaches past the fear.
Their heads incline, a word is said.
Oh, a word … a word … she says a word.

A word I cannot hear.