POLITICAL Poem: the water under our feet, by Preston Eddings

taking this bath
I’m reminded of a time
we’d steal our showers
from the cowards
writing county fines.
as if water were a margin
that could just as easily
be mined.
we’d pick the roaches
out of the cheerios
and pestered the Presbyterians
for their out-of-date canned meat.
but the worst of it:
we were born into a time
when modern science
taught the government
how to dig a well and steal
the water from under our feet
then turn around and
sell it back to us for a fee;
fine us when we took a wrench
to the pipes in our own yard
so, we could drink and shower with
the water under our feet.
that’s how poverty works;
it compounds onto itself.
they’ll fine a man with no money
and send him to jail
when he defaults,
because a man who can’t
buy back his own water
is no man at all.

Author: poetryfest

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