Every Saturday morning at half-past eight I stand in the breadline at St. John's. This is about this morning. I also won the breadline milk lottery. A three-peat!

Breadline Solidarity

Fresh-scrubbed bright-eyed corn-fed blonde-haired girls make
A special breadline box for the poet
And boys who look just like them bring it out
They offer absolutely everything
But there is only so much I can take
Since I walked down and the grownups know it
So a volunteer volunteers to bring
Box and poet home having brought about
An eye-opening confirmation class

We pass a hobo lying on the grass
He is already tired and has no place
To go with his Saturday breadline box
But he got a good one in any case
And I see he holds a new pair of socks
Too clean for his feet until later on
When he can step into the fountain's pool
Tonight when the out-of-towners have gone
He knows what to do is nobody's fool
And illustrates the central paradox
Of homelessness where hard knocks go to school
Wherever he is is his place to be

The kids have had their eyes opened today
Their confirmation class taught them to see
That hobos and poets look the same way
At least when hobos are poets like me
Standing in the breadline on Saturday
Thanking God I still have a place to live
If perhaps only temporarily
To put away what opened-eyed kids give
With love in breadline solidarity

+Steven Curtis Lance



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