Running the Gauntlet

Shaggy brothers, you stand by the roadside
we can barely read your cardboard signs;
“will work for food – got kids at home.”
I’d guess you know what we’re thinking,
we can’t stop and give you money in traffic.
And down the road there’s another fellow
and then there’s a woman with a child
waving her sign that says  “we need food.”

She’s got a bigger sign than yours, standing
and holding her little girl’s hand in gravel
on a shoulder of the off ramp to Target.
Like running a gauntlet from here to Sears,
how can we pass you by, yet how do we stop
to render aid when you congregate like this;
increasing dozens of unfortunate waifs
with nothing in common except your pleas.

Outside a Wal Mart parking lot, a guy leans
against a metal lamp pole by a traffic light
trying to get our attention as we drive by
ever more ragged victims of circumstance.
He looks different from the usual participant.
He’s wearing a nice clean shirt and a fedora
cocked to one side. His huge sign is clear,
“I wouldn’t lie to you – I want to buy beer.”