Pris Campbell
Let Them Eat Cake
falling sky
bedtime tale
for sidewalk sleepers
Southeast Florida has become the destination for migrating iguanas, snowbirds, and the freezing homeless.
A large park isn’t far from where we live. Everyone knows by the broken branches and footprints that homeless people set up tents in areas of heavy bushes. It’s a refuge until they’re found and chased off.
The Salvation Army doesn’t have enough places to stay during the day and fills quickly at night. Meals can be hard to find. Once a week for almost a year a man with a van and his helper have been picking up unsold food from fast food places and restaurants. It would have to be tossed out, otherwise. A gathering of women and children wait at the park, bellies growling from hunger.
“This is wrong,” an irate official cries. “The food could be contaminated. He refuses to stop.”
Meetings of the town council ensue. Public protest is futile.
My husband brings in the morning paper: LOCAL MAN BANNED FROM FEEDING THE HOMELESS AT PARK is the headline. A fine or even jail time is the penalty! For him as well as anyone else.
The homeless are soon back to foraging in the garbage bins of the places that once donated food not already fingered, crawling with bugs, or half eaten.
parched night a sky full of tears
About the Author
Pris Campbell’s work has appeared in numerous print and online journals. She’s placed or had an honorable mention in several competitions, including first place in the Marlene Mountain and the Sanford Goldstein 2021 contests, and published nine books/chapbooks. A former clinical psychologist until sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990, she makes her home with her husband in Southeast Florida.
Jobsworth petty mindedness bent on cruelty. Great to have social consciousness pieces!
“Southeast Florida has become the destination for migrating iguanas, snowbirds, and the freezing homeless.”
That’s a great advertising line, after all if it’s true, it should be strapline for any tourist promotions.