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.