Lack gets latched on the inner lining of the belly
—not hunger, not physically—there are government
food cards for that, and the pantry is open Tuesdays
and Fridays. You come away with a box of goods
resulting from too few choices you’re grateful enough
to stand in line an hour for, five allowed in at a time. So
not that, but more the leeching away of personal power
and any notion you might still have that you are
cause of effect and/or the recipient of some kind
of magical fortune. When I was a kid in the sixties
they told us how much better off we were
than Russian children to whom it was dictated
what they’d become, and how that said a lot
about the better U.S. system. But now I have had to
let go of the hope once inherent in the expectation
of middle class. I’ve had to get used to
the St. Vinnie’s clothes of this being
my lot in life now. I mean when you’ve applied
for a whole pile of jobs that you never even thought
you’d consider, but you’re praying now that as they draw lots
from hundreds for this one opening that if you would
for some inexplicable reason be chosen
for this part-time minimum-wage job, you’d feel like you
had just won the lottery, and working that job, living
that life, would seem to you like a lot.

Jan Carroll is a freelance writer and proofreader, a facilitator of small poetry-writing groups, and a lay minister. A chapbook titled River is forthcoming, and a book on writing poetry as a spiritual practice is in the works.