(For: the Women United Rally, Sat., April 28, and the Put People First Rally, Tues., May 1)

Jobless

No unemployment

Homeless

Denied shelter

Pregnant

Not covered by health care

Physically disabled

Bumped into and knocked down on the sidewalk

Mentally in distress

Called a retard

Tasered

Didn’t move along fast enough

Arrested

For loitering on a public bench

Robbed

Of everything in life I loved

Shot

For just being there

Dying

On a cold street while people gawk

Dead

And now I see it all:

I read too many books when I was young

And believed in them

Went to meetings where people said

We would get things done

Voted for the right one who turned wrong

All the time

And put my whole self into being good

And ignored others who did the opposite

The dead here tell me

It’s older than the dirt they were buried in

But what is worse they say

Is that here they take the bad with the good

And that means life might have meant something

If we had all put up a better fight

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.