outside the sandwich shop, I’m
trying to decide what
I want: Italian? Turkey
& ham? Cuban?
In the news,
the president, out
to dinner with foreign dig-
nitaries, orders
drone strikes on Yemeni towns.
How’d that get on the menu?
A scruffy looking
guy about my age wanders
up the block, asking
everyone for spare change. He
says he hasn’t had a bite
in days.
To avoid
eye contact, I read about
the statue being
built to honor a beloved
actor, recently passed, who’d
starred in war movies
that grossed grotesque profits
for the studio.
So much money, yet hungry,
homeless people. I guess it’s
left to me, lunching
between two, now three, part-time
jobs, barely eking
out a living for myself,
to provide for the poor. So,
of course, I bite him.
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First appeared in Bond Street Review, Summer 2018.
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