American Life in Poetry

The news coverage of Hurricane Katrina gave America a vivid look at our poor and powerless neighbors. Here Alex Phillips of Massachusetts condenses his observations of our country’s underclass into a wise, tough little poem.

Work Shy

To be poor and raise skinny children.

To own nothing but skinny clothing.

Skinny food falls in between cracks.

Friends cannot visit your skinny home.

They cannot fit through the door.

Your skinny thoughts evaporate into

the day or the night that you cannot

see with your tiny eyes.

God sticks you with the smallest pins

and your blood, the red is diluted.

Imagine a tiny hole, the other side

of which is a fat world and how

lost you would feel. Of course,

I’m speaking to myself.

How lost I would feel, and how dangerous.