India (1982)
beneath the sagging roof of her tiny hut.
She moans as she cradles her child,
his belly swollen with parasites and malnutrition.
She can not read the sign on the peddler's cart.
Under it the peddler sleeps—his only home.
Even he avoids the leper, an outcast from Calcutta.
A farmer drives a lean ox over barren soil
while sacred cows wander through the village.
One of these people will die.
The others will live in suffering.
In America, a teenager drives to a store
and pays $125 for his third pair of Nike's.