At home in their everyday devastation,

          the children come close

          with their deformities

          because we, gawkers, broke down.

          First World workers, we swoop in

          like the scavenging birds

          that twirl up and down at that green,

          turbid water, clogged with waste,

          circle above in the smoky inferno

          of air.  Birds can fly away,

          and so can we.  One man salvaged

          an armchair, placed it

          in front of his shoulder-high house

          made of castoffs.  These leftover people

          are everywhere, everywhere our dollars

          do and do not go.  They are the detritus

          to our affluence.  The children

          gather as the birds do, come to see

          what we look like.  Some do. 

          Some are too busy dying

          to even wonder at these engines

          of ours that only rarely break down.

          The men come to help us. 

— Carol Hamilton