Bread, Light or Heat is one of my poverty poems, a description of some of the hard choices people have to make when cash is in short supply.
Bread, Light or Heat – Poverty Poems
The fridge stinks of emptiness,
the stench fills the room
every time his forever hopeful kids
open it to see
just in case he'd have bought
some bread.
Last week, he chose light
over bread, homework is
important after all,
he reasoned
and stretched the spaghetti
from Monday morning
straight through to Sunday night.
In March, they can sit
and watch TV without
wearing woolly hats
and itchy scarves
and knitted socks /
perched in front of the
fire, lit from
branches they heap up
in the woods on Sundays.
He loves Monday mornings,
though he detests work
as much as they abhor school
for all the reasons you do
like
stale bread,
glaring lights,
and stuffy heat.
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