My hair touches my soft, huge pillow
And I tuck myself, thinking
Of the bright yellow egg to be prepared by our mother
The next morning
A mother scratches through her hair
Tangled with worries of where
Her husband has been,
To get the wages for eggs
She hopes will make in time for her six year old son
Eyes closed
With rumbling tummy,
Little Tommy, will you wake up to the bright
Yellow sun not only
Your eyes shall see
But shall touch you hopes?

Why do you deserve what you have
And more?

While the man outside begging
For his life
Deserves what he has
And nothing more

You stand there and laugh
At your pedestal  
As if you’re better than me
But are you?

We both come from dirt
And will be dirt.

I’m a *****
who sells himself
for the privilege of food.
Existing in your world
of surface beauty
and splendor,
that’s the only payday
I’ve ever known.

–Ron Gavalik

Every time they speak
Of injustice in the streets
A silence is born

We watch the cries of widows
And hide beneath our pale skin

Break me into chasm
then let the love pour in—
flower into deep well—
stem the umbilicus
of what you could say
you knew of me—

the privilege of living
inside your own head—
and me,
something made of sand,
a wink—

something of one
of many lives ago,
though how well
you knew me—
as did he—
how well they saw me—
and maybe no one did.

We were lovers
in a past life.
And now
I am obscure as
lost Atlantis, origin
of the fairy tale—
fragile
as gossamer and
the Holy Grail.