R.A. Allen

Muzak for Indigents  

          at the bus stop

          at the health center

          at the payday loans

          Poverty is their angel

          and Want is her song,

          a low white thrum

          of persistent complaint,

          a birth fever

          that never abates.

          at other times Poverty

          is a mezzo-soprano

          in a coloratura

          of converging sirens

          —police, fire, ambulance—

          spiccato

          on the nerves,

          a turbine driving

          the adrenaline gland.