Drive-By
By Patricia Asuncion

Cars insulate,
cut fast    getaways
from street people who provoke guilt
with hunger that angers
well-behaved routines.

The Voiceless crouch     clean forgot
in fast-paced apathy, marooned
with crude cardboard confessions,
dismissed by dog-eat-dog drivers
who insist hungry is a hustle.

Unlike corner beggars,
homeless women and kids, run
from street corner scrutiny    scramble
for anonymous shelter
from hit-and-run humanity.

Outside White welcome,
dirt-colored rags and races
are kept deprived in ditches—
failed schools, prisons, slums,
colored walls.

The tired, the poor, the huddled masses
yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse and homeless
from any shitholes, *

no longer welcome.

(Note: * POTUS news commentary about Haiti & Africa; italicized from Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus, the Statue of Liberty)