Poverty makes old look older. Clothes become outer skin. Identified by their clothing, faces become unseen. We discount the clothes before there is ever the beginning of engagement with the person's face. And so, having dehumanised many of the most needy, we can live, happily avoiding the poverty on our streets.
Who Has Seen The Old Men?
Who has seen the old men
getting their suits
tanned to their backs?
Ghost of a check,
button-holes frayed,
crew-cut threads.
Years worn on face
and on cloth;
the cloth becomes the face.
And when the Summer colours
come clashing
on the young,
who will see
the old men
in their ashen clothes?
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