See them sitting in the rain
as the sky is darkening.
Three lines of traffic edge past
The Ministry of Social Affairs.
At a junction, on the ground
an amputee and a pregnant hound
sit by young men with withered arms
as if death had already passed
through every alleyway and left
a million beggars’ silhouettes
near where the money-changers sit
by their locked glass cabinets.
What’s happened? Let’s go and ask
The Ministry of Social Affairs,
near where the money-changers sit
by their locked glass cabinets.