Poverty lives abundantly in San Francisco
10,000 homeless call its streets home
1 in 4 children and 1 in 5 adults
Go to bed hungry
Malnourished
Somewhere in San Francisco
Nearly 16,000 families face hunger daily
A city of immense wealth
Shuffles over malnourished children
While on the other side of the world
Seven hundred years ago
In medieval Europe
Children and the poor
Filled the prisons
Because they could not pay taxes
In San Francisco
In the year 2013
Children and the poor
Fill the streets
Because they cannot
Find homes
The world’s wealthiest 100 people
Earned 240 billion dollars last year
Their wealth could end poverty
Four times over
No one owns our water, air and land
It is held in trust for all
The gap between rich and poor
Accelerates through miasmatic fog
Poverty lives abundantly in San Francisco
—Karen Melander Magoon
Poetry of Poverty in San Francisco
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