Beneath the towers of ruthless profit streams,
A cardboard kingdom trembles in the cold;
Flashing billboards mock the country’s dream
Of lives this steel‑veined city never could hold.

Businessmen in dark suits hurry on their way,
Their leather briefcases freighted with the day,
Hollow eyes, like specters, fixed in cold survey,
Count monuments to wealth in bleak array.

The marketplace parades its endless feast,
Ten thousand choices gleaming, waiting to be sold;
While mothers thumb through coins for just enough to eat,
And hunger wears the faces of the old.

In alleyways behind the neon glow,
Where discarded plenty overfills the bins,
The desperate sift through scraps where darkness grows,
While a block away, the next transaction spins.

The politician speaks of rising tides,
How wealth will lift all boats upon its swell,
But anchored here where broken hope resides,
The drowning cannot hear salvation’s bell.

A veteran stands vigil with his sign,
His medals traded long ago for pills and pain,
While limousines glide past in perfect line,
Their passengers trading notes on next quarter’s gains.

The hospital sends bills he cannot pay—
For dignity has fees he’ll never meet—
So illness becomes debt, and debt becomes decay,
While spreadsheets price his pulse in columns neat.

At dusk, the city symphony ascends:
The clink of champagne glasses up above,
The rattle of a shopping cart that bends
Beneath the weight of all we claim we love.

And in the space between the rich and poor,
There lies a chasm words cannot define—
Not mere statistics, not an abstract score,
But children’s eyes that learned to read decline.

On Thursday, we give thanks for what we’ve stored,
For crowded tables, candlelight, and heat;
While those the wealthiest nation has ignored
Give thanks for life, one more night on the street.