Jeffrey Baldwin

My eyes sting with impotent tears,
at the outrage and horror that weeping
won't cleanse my mind of and yet
I read and reread the obscene.
His short life, his squalid death
at the hands of adults he trusted,
no creature least of all a child should suffer.
He was five, just five and died alone,
ignored by others sharing his home,
in a bed so filthy the big men who came
to take the tiny form away gagged and wept.
So frail they feared his bones might snap
in their gentle hands, he weighed less than
five years earlier in happier times.
I hope his mind went there
to a better place, remembered kindnesses
and childish fun before he closed his eyes
one last time.

Jeffrey Baldwin (January 20 1997 – November 30 2002) was a Canadian child whose death was from years of mistreatment by his grandparents. The trial heard they had kept Jeffrey locked in a bedroom, where he lived in his own waste, was made to eat what few scraps he got off the floor like an animal and was left no water forcing him to drink from a toilet. His life ended, they live on in jail.