Endless rows of cement circles
Number after number
The shut away, the forgotten
The undeserving
Society’s trash
Abandoned
Given no name after death
Only a hole in an unwanted piece of ground
Dug by his brothers
The only family he had
At the end
More at https://www.taralynnhawk.com/.
We settled it years ago, closed asylums, so many,
those Dickensian places, exposed, closed, patients,
inmates released into the world, often just left off
with few plans and fewer places to go; streets are
never enough; homeless they haunt us, we jail them,
fill emergency rooms with them, with no beds for
them; instead of doctors we give them the police,
instead of treatment, we jail them, instead of solutions
we get statistics, how many of the homeless, how
many crimes, how many dollars we spend to no end,
and we’re getting to know that solutions are never
as easy as they seem to be.