Skid Row Poem by Mimie Durand

Each day the homeless face desperate choices:
where is their next meal; the next bed,
each day trying to make sense of it all.

Men women and children line the streets
in many layers of torn, dirty clothing,
fighting for food with the other unfortunate people-
as well as the homeless dogs and cats.

Hospitals dropping off indigent patients
along with transients showing others the way.
At night they curl up on their beds of clothing
burying hands up their sleeves to keep warm.

When they sleep they don’t have dreams;
rather nightmares about who will initiate the next fight
or steal the goods they sought so hard for-
when will it all stop.