Urban Camping

 

I reported in newsprint that rubs off on sweaty, swollen fingertips

when the sister city down the highway

            passed their own ordinance;

I gave the northern council fair warning – all the activists, too,

            and passed a note to the whack-a-mole

marshal’s officer on patrol;

I heard back but the response only asked about street urchins

            and that’s a task for the schools, they said,

            who can house these kids in hotels (if necessary: eligibility rules are subject to change).  

               As for those adults, especially single and addicted, they can stay

               in jails or hospitals on the taxpayers’ dollar,

               but that’s transitional housing, we’ll call it,

               and eventually the insurer or the judge

               will set you free

               to your indebtedness.

 

So …

   If you lost your home

            to the landlord moving from rent to sale –

   If you got no door to lock

            because drink ate the change money –

   If you ain’t got four walls, a lean-to or an A-frame

            because the hours were too late and the job didn’t pay much, anyway –

   If you can’t bear the shelter clutter

            and prefer an overpass for a thump-thump thunderous roof

            or need to hide the head voices among the alley noises

               pipelines between the missions, with a storage unit in between,

                        then an accident is your best pension;

                       

            Ideas:   trespass and get your foot crushed by a truck in the “too dimly lit lot,” according

to an affidavit.

                        walk away from domestic violence in the rain and get clipped by a cop car

                                    racing to the scene, according to witnesses and dash cam footage.

 

So … here’s the number for a personal injury lawyer

1-888-SETTLED

the business might even pay the court costs

                        and the city might drop the jaywalking charge

                        for a payout that gets out in front of the story –

                                    that’s the only way you’re going home again,

                                    no longer arrested for urban camping and aggressive panhandling

                                                those new euphemistic laws of the book (Millennial 7:3-4)