Stray dogs roved the streets in the days after the flood,
slathered in mud, tearing through trash as they scavenged for grub.
Marshall law had taken the city, but government salvage was done.
Cowards had run, and most of us left were rather calloused and numb.
Then there was Marco, 12 years old. He's the kid in your picture.
Brown orphan turned street urchin. Used to live with his sister,
but her house was destroyed, split by the river.
So now there's Marco, tired, alone, listening to whispers.
But what is freedom?
The American system teaches us to cherish a vision:
democracy, worthy of a perilous fight to tear us from prisons.
It's inassailable wisdom shared through scriptures of patriots,
who took care of the children of this bric-a-brac nation-state.
Capitalist ethos tells us power for the people
means that every man will have a chance to rise.
But you can't disguise this hourglass.
We're worker ants designed to bow our backs
until the time is up and we can't supply the labor force.
But we're in the land of the free, even as the tables turn,
and the housing market rises. And salaries deflate.
It's an entire modern generation putting our degrees to waste.
I'll never own a home. I'll never pay my student loans.
My life insurance probably won't even cover the funeral home.
So I'm forced into vagrancy, drifting from rent to rent.
And I haven't put away a cent for my pension yet.
I've lived in four states in the past five years — unsettlement —
and keep my boxes packed but flag high. A real American.
So now there's Marco, tired, alone, huddled by the fire, reposed.
He's seen enough to understand he's finally home.
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