Small house
isolated, scabrous.
Chickens in the doorway,
half-naked children in the yard.

Never enough.
Gone before it gets there.

Echoes of laughter
mark the morning.

One child after another
darts inside to beg
a mother’s kiss.

Daddy swings his kids
round and round, throwing
them over his shoulder,
where they giggle with glee.

I guess they never read
the government pamphlet
that diagrams their
socio-economic space
at the bottom of society’s
pyramid.

Don’t need no pity here!