Everyone needs someone
to look down upon.
There’s comfort in it.
It’s not mental illness
to be poor
and destitute.
It’s money.
Getting money,
they are poor.
Getting money
anyway they can,
they are destitute.
They are a nuisance,
the destitute poor.
We who are not
poor and destitute
hate the destitute poor.
If truth be known,
the destitute poor
hates us.
Some of us
not among
the destitute poor
help out,
wonder why
others do not.
To most of us.
the destitute poor,
those we see living
in tents at the side of the road,
abandoned buildings,
rooms without heat,
adequate plumbing,
run-down trailer parks,
poverty-stricken,
sick, lame, mentally disturbed,
those who sell
their bodies
to stay alive,
or destroy
their bodies
and minds
to shield themselves
from the pain
and degradation,
are not really alive.
They do not matter.
Do not say you do not think
them less than human,
these destitute poor,
because
of the nature
of their lives
or what they must do
to stay alive.
You click your tongue
as you walk by them.
You say to yourself,
I wish someone
would do something
about them.
Would you take them
into your home,
give them half your money?
You would for a relative
perhaps
a dear friend
fallen on hard times.
Helping the destitute poor
is a collective necessity,
an individual mandate.
We are family.