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      July 19, 2014Motor City TiradeDawn McDuffie

      Send us your homeless, your crazy.
      The lady who wears a wedding veil
      every day with her fox stole and twenty necklaces—
      better she lives in the city; she would be locked up
      after one day on the clean streets
      of Bloomfield Hills.
      Hookers belong in the city
      just like wastewater sent in from the county
      in exchange for clean water pumped back
      for comfortable lives.
      Whole rivers flow under the pavements,
      constrained by tiles, carrying no light
      but still making a path to the Great Lakes.
      And hidden children in ghetto schools
      breathe burning garbage,
      roach droppings and asbestos dust,
      and flunk out when they miss
      too many days.
      They don’t visit the shiny casino
      that displaced the local pool.
      Now we must host the happy gambler.
      Nothing as perfect as those casino streets
      edged with pots of pink geraniums.
      Oh, it can be so pleasant here and also
      near the mayor’s house where the four-foot
      snowfall is promptly whisked away
      while the rest of us pray the electricity
      won’t give out. Aging circuits
      keep the lights flickering. I watch them
      up and down the street from my house,
      wires popping and writhing
      when the load just gets too heavy.

      from #20 - Winter 2003