The Sweep

 The inheritance of 

any of us is dust, and the 

birthright to settle anywhere

somewhere, 

the length and breadth from

scalp to toes, 

and the city ordained it wasn't so--

settle your dust elsewhere!

And in the cold of night

surrendered the meager things

of warmth and comfort to so much dust

and scattered belongings and persons

to the winds.

To the winds. When earth was the only home

that man would ever lay his form down,

of earth made and nurtured and all these

scattered dust motes once were enumerated humans

man and woman born. 

Where would they go, these forgotten children of your 

own ribs?

Where would they go, these houseless sparks of life

Once nurtured in human arms and human breasts

to be embraced by asphalt and condemned

by appearances and propriety to 

be embraced by the dust from which they came--

though in their dignity and vulnerability, they are

the same? 

The shame,

to deny a place at the table for those 

upon whom so much has been imposed.

To sweep away with indifference beings of 

dust, but sentience. 

and call it anything but violence.