You Don't Get To Rest If You Are Poor

Stephen Taylor
Photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash
You don’t get to rest if you are poor.
Hard work for holidays doesn’t exist;
Come home—if you have one—Grandfather’s mattress
Collapse and sleep and go again.
Children choose hunger so parents can eat.
Stomach growling silently filled with watery soup;
Fantasy fills the void.
Mocked for clothes that do not last
Worn to rags and patched up again.
No newness is no news
Tomorrow walks in worn-out shoes.
Stress of survival draws lines on the soul
Children who grow up are older than all
Repeat the same lives as their parents have led
World on their shoulders a heart made of lead.
Pull up your bootstraps and chin to the sky
The rich ones have promised and they wouldn’t lie
A lifetime of hardship with pennies in hand
The poor must be fallowed to harvest the land.