When last I saw Musa rise to the top
was on the Midday News Statistics,
they said illiteracy had increased in the slums,
and so there he was topping the chart.
He was born with a mind wide as the sky
but his only classroom was the street,
of which he had to master the syllabus of survival.
He was only six when hunger taught him math,
one meal, divided by five mouths equals a belly still begging for more.
At Nine, he stopped dreaming,
dreams required sleep,
and he was too busy chasing the minutes between sunrise and survival.
