Aid to Needy Often Excludes the Poorest in America

(Inspired by an article by Patricia Cohen)

The working poor outnumber ev’ry other demographic;

You find them in the stores and plants and stuck in sluggish traffic.

They’re striving to regain a foothold in the clash of soul

That comes to ev’ry person who would get off of the dole.

 

And then you have the homeless and the jobless émigré

Who might be an American, but has no place to stay.

Like Humpty Dumpty, he or she has fallen off the wall

And no one cares to pick them up from such a dismal sprawl.

 

A Swiftian solution is to let the homeless carve

Each other up or else be left to sit around and starve.

Were I to give you odds on their survival rate today

‘twould be about the same as at a damn auto de fe.