Black Chador

The women of Alexandria wear a chador that
mercifully hides her bony body, she could have
fitted a Dior dress snugly, but she doesn't
know this, she has walked ten miles to buy
bread for her children
She has been to the fruit market too, where
where rib-cage mules with sores stoically wait
A rich, elderly English woman tells the mule
As the owner of it, she has never felt the pang of hunger
Nevertheless, she puts bandages on a mule's
open sores
The woman in the black chador is oblivious of this
Empathy for suffering animals is
a concern of
the wealthy, those who have time to care