The Poor at Heart

“So the last shall be first.”

—MATTHEW 20:16

They scuttle under bridges, decks,

while bricks are falling through the floors,

and everything comes down around their ears.

They rest like crows on broken fences.

Uneven breaths disturb the air,

approximating wind. The grubby hands

reach up from rubble at the roadside.

Bodies at the margins stink in suns.

They smell of sour dust and shadow

and the shuck of palms.

Their still sad music moans around us,

pouring into ditches, over broken ground.

The bored reporters tell their stories,

but there’s not enough of human

interest in so much dross

to sell more papers, as they must.

Some say that help is coming soon.

There may be medicine without borders,

ceremonies lifting them on high.

But priests and doctors in their shiny coats

are truly stumped. The macroeconomic

theories fail, with everyone

at last still waiting for the first,

with blue notes rising in the sooty air.