Seeing the people, broke, pitted, awry,
That should like arrows at gay targets fly,
That should fly, arrogant, right in sun’s face,
We guess at background of this rained-on race:
Which in cradles their first trauma took
From blocks with edges or fierce jungle-book;
Which streaked or waddled from their mother’s touch
Thinblue with no love, swollen with too much;
Which under pulpits sucked sonorous harm,
Which among blackboards from a tart schoolmarm;
Who saw no spirochete in bright kisses leer,
No bloodshed or amnesia in bright beer;
And all who felt war, whisky, law’s effect;
Whom bank or brittle gene or event wrecked;
That now they creep with crutch, eye-bandage, hook,
Ragged as shadows in a crooked brook.
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