This gray day in our pockets (revised)

In the morning this gray day in our pockets will break the backs of someone already bending over and under for a piece of comfort in the lush of our great nation. Someone’s struggling tongue can’t translate their pain in a call for balance, their woes swallowed up in headlines, loud demagogues bickering.

And just across the street, two steps from a box on the corner, someone somewhere is busy balancing bills, juggling workloads, living from paycheck to paycheck or living with no paycheck. While words and politics swim in dizzying rhetoric, someone somewhere steps over suffering with dirt on their feet. Someone’s sunken shoulders will rise in the morning and again scrape loose change together for a loaf of bread and some hope. Last night, someone sighed of relief that the heat blowing in through the window was warmer than the water to bathe in. Today someone will sit with the pile of bills, worry as the checks dry up like breast milk did six months ago. Hungry mouths don’t feed simply on legislative drama; they are hungry for food, shelter, survival, and security. When hunger speaks by vote, by stance, by violence, I hope someone is listening. I hope someone is listening.