My Mommy and My Maker

I saw him there
But a lonely little boy
His eyes wide and glassy
With unshed tears
'Little boy,' I hastened to say
Seeing New Yorkers hustle by this little boy
With their cold hearts and warm pockets
'What are you doing
Out here all alone?'
He blinked and looked up at me
A starstruck look on his face
'Why ma'am,' He said to me, his voice thick with untold secrets
'I'm not alone,' And he hurried to explain
'My mommy and my maker
'Are watching over me'
'Ma'am, don't you see?'
And he pointed to the sky
A small grin cutting onto his face
That was the day
My whole life was changed
By but a little glassy-eyed boy straggling along
No one to watch over him
But his mommy and his maker.
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I haven't edited but one line on this whole thing since I wrote it. Any reviews, good or bad, are appreciated.

Antoinette -

A unique tone, for sure. And it's told with the sort of simplicity that I would expect from the boy's point of view. I'm having trouble figuring out the age of the narrator - are they slightly older than the boy? It would seem so, for the way they recount the events is wonderfully childish, while still retaining an element of maturity. I think this is because of the lines - they're calm, not assertive, but gentle. They don't bounce around. They don't show off.

In fact, that in itselt might make the poem...boring, almost. But it's not - and that's because you are telling a story throughout it. It's more about the plot and the characters - if I might use the terminology of short stories - than it is about the imagery, and in some bizarre way, it doesn't come across as lacking at all. Instead, it appears quite purposefully underwritten, which elevates it all the more.

There are areas for improvement, of course. I would recommend removing capitals from the start of each line. You can keep it at the beginning of each sentence, yes, but I think this needs something that makes it all the cuter. Plus, it ties in perfectly with the tone - cuteness, helplessness. Big domineering capitals don't help much when you're trying to get that across. (Just a quick punctuation note here: if you've just finished quotation marks, you don't need to start the next bit with a capital if you finished on a comma - you do this on almost all occasions.)

Also, a line that irked me was: 'but a lonely little boy.' Here is where you lose that control, that beautiful starkness of underwriting. You do not need to hammer the point home by so many words in such little a space - 'but,' 'lonely,' 'little.' The description functions just fine without all three; in fact, the line where you actually say, ''Little boy,' I hasten to say' is all we need to get that impression of him. I also don't like 'My whole life was changed' for much the same reason. It's melodramatic, hence overwritten. There's too much explanation here, and that's precisely why it comes across as fake. You've done a great job of ascribing monumental importance to this seemingly ordinary encounter on the road; don't ruin it by waving that fact in our face and saying it aloud. That kills the subtlety you've already achieved.

Anyway, a lovely poem. PM me if you have any questions, okay?

Thank you for the review! I'll keep what you've said in mind and possibly tweak it a little here and there.