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