Social Contract

I believe in equality,

Which means getting my share.

That is not to suggest others should suffer more,

Rather, I should suffer less.

I walk briskly along 6th Avenue,

Parallel to the gentle green hillside

That, like the growing darkness,

Gives this hour to the street people.

Blankets and shopping carts

Are being moved into spaces

Assigned by the strongest,

Who enforce a certain tyranny.   

It is not a safe place, 

And for the women without group

Or male protection, 

It can become a very long night.

Their number has grown 

Since I last made this walk.

The heaviness of the landscape

Demands I hasten my pace.

Poverty is the common weight.

Those who appear particularly anxious

Are likely new to this park side

And may not be here tomorrow.

This pathetic scene must be repeated

Across the city, county, state, country and beyond.

It has become impolitic to suggest a solution

To a problem that predates the written word.

Few of these people will vote,

Their days are devoted to survival.

Estate planning and tax credits 

Are not their priorities.

I was told of a man who had eaten a cat.

It was not his, but that hardly matters.

The pain of starvation creates priorities

That do not impose themselves on the more fortunate.

We who believe in a national social contract

Are responsible, if not for the tragedy 

That visits so many,

Then the care of those who embody what we might have been.