New Poem.

Set your pen upon
the following points
and draw lines

connecting dusty walls
to corners full of hair from long-dead pets

Draw a line from high-piled tables
to near-empty pantry shelves
and sparsely populated refrigerator

From bills in a heap
to nothing in the bank
with small hope of ever having more than that
from week to week

Draw those lines and
you’ll end up with a map
of seeming disintegration

that will somehow
never touch upon
how the people
who live in this territory
manage to smile
care for their children
imagine joy
and build toward a future
situated somewhere within
these borders