Fear of Poverty

• In the Mission district,
• fear of poverty puffs me up,
• as I blow like a paper cup
• from curb to sidewalk,
• under the soles of the poor.
• They gather in a yellow light,
• against clinging brick
• and cluttered street,
• and measure a kind of home,
• filled with the smoke and trash
• that expand their lives.
• In the comforting sameness
• of discomfort, limiting and limitless,
• is their poverty,
• which they can’t afford to fear.
• 14 September 1984