Lunches or cops

Crackers and granola bars
on a back to school list;
“for lunches”, the footnote says.

Taxes go up,
lunches get axed,
Now, teachers beg for snacks.

But this, you must hear–
Lunches for one school, for one school year,
Cost less than one cop per year.

When did fear trump hungry kids?
Why return to those Dickensian days
when kid’s lives were so bleak?

Every day kids yank open
their plastic bags for
that day’s public token.

They pull out their paltry
peanut butter sandwiches,
or just butter sandwiches.

Police cruisers patrol the night,
like a shadow slinking around sleepy
houses, winking off one by one.

They complain constantly about incorrigible kids,
or how nobody appreciates them, or hates them,
or understands the daily deadly dangers facing them.

While moms put lunches
in book bags for her kids
to grab in the morning.

She takes pride in her
humus and cheese sandwiches
with savory cheese curds.

And prays her kids grow up
with so much integrity
to never worry about cops.

Sirens wail and budgets bleed,
but kid’s growling stomachs plead–
they need bread, not dread.

Lunches for one school, for one year,
cost less, than one cop per year.
Think hard about it.