Wolf at our door,
scratching at the lame
paint job. And the grass
(what grass?—) is brown
as a smoker’s lung.
Our lived-out jeans
are rife and pinched
to the seams—threadbare
as a whisper, that wasn’t worth
mentioning. As a last insult,
mama even patched out the true
blue sky. Between creases,
a steamy breath seeps through
like drafts from old windows.
This is subsistence. Not a dime
to our name, and nowhere to complain—
The man, he gone home.

We are a liability, dire
as shoes that don’t fit
the blisters no more.
We are a hardship, left by the rich
relations, who sold us out
for a pittance. Our Hall of Fame
is unworthy of a yard sale—
and slim pickin’s, a sham at the dump
of shame. Surely, one man’s
garbage is another man’s
bones. But when you got nothin’
you got nothin’ to remove,
nothin’ to lose—only the dirt
on the poor, poor floor.