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This is a poem describing the fate of the of the poverty-stricken and abused.

She sits each day, a child of five
At the top of broken down stairs
With tattered dress and tearful eyes
And who among us knows or cares?

The rented home is all run down,
Yet her mother insists she wait
Til the five o’clock whistle blows
Down by the old factory gate

Her stomach is never near full
She walks with a rickety gait.
From thin gravy and week old bread
No milk or meat upon her plate

Her life is charted, future set
As sad round eyes reflect her fate
Though happier days may come yet
She’ll never be more than a waif

She marries young, no wedding scene
No sounds of laughter in her life
She puts away her childish dreams
Wrapped within the mantle of wife

At forty, she is too soon old
With lines etched deep upon her face
Destitution spawned this poor soul
Along with poverty’s disgrace

Melancholy saps her powers
Turns and tosses through sleepless nights
And in the early pre-dawn hours
She contemplates her hapless plight

At eighty-four she sits once more
Her tear-lined face exudes despair
Soon death will claim her evermore
And who among us knew or cared?