Poem by Michael Ratcliffe

WHERE DOES THE CHILD SLEEP TONIGHT?
  
Where does the old man sleep tonight?
In his stately home on a quiet street,
away from the city’s noise,
and the stress of governing,
of calculating returns on investments,
profit margins, and collateral damage.
 
Where does the young girl sleep tonight?
In her mother’s arms in the desert night.
In the squalor of a camp or a fetid slum.
On the side of a Mexican road,
fleeing the violence that grows
from corporate greed
and trickle-down fantasies--
surplus for Empire to count
and cast aside.
 

Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer and poet who lives and writes between Baltimore and Washington. When he is not writing poetry, he manages geographic programs and teaches population geography.

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