poverty teaches no one
it's just dark and small
like a revolver
always ready to be
the final judge.

i remember dirty walls
macaroni, television and
dumping the slop pail.
there was no beauty
you just survived
between paydays.

my father
drank every friday
and saturday nights.
he lived between the
borders of the day shift
and the night shift.
that was the only
structure I knew.

i know now
that he sold
what little of himself
he had so that I could eat.
what kind of change is that?
where one generation sacrifices
itself so that the next one
can walk on its bones
with a new pair of shoes.

- Robert Hilles

He was assigned this poem, and along with the rest of his group was developing an interpretation of its message. After each class, he gets into an over sized, pearlescent white bmw. "Wow," he says to me, "I never thought of it that way before." What more could I ask for?