Midweek Review
“Madam” and her Wards
By Lynn Ockersz
Six anxious, awkward teenage girls,
Are following their “Madam” close at heel,
To the rundown Spa hardly seen in the busy street,
But sought by restless men when darkness sets in,
But in the Isle fabled for its charity,
No one looks askance at this sight,
No one dare asks questions that matter;
Nor is accountability exacted from office holders;
But posers like the following may be asked,
By those who choose to care for the ‘nation’,
Now that Ishalini too has brought things into focus:
Isn’t this an induction into prostitution?
What lured the girls away from school,
And made them walk footloose on the streets?
Would the “Madam” be ever taken to task?
Or would she be allowed to go, with no questions asked,
When a swoop by the uniformed gentry,
Thrusts the girls into a police lockup,
And makes them wilt there sadly,
Though into primal youth they are about to bloom.