Imposed ghettos
We hide
Like rabbits
In our sky warrens.
Steel glass and concrete
Constructs
Without sense of safety
Or soul.
Four invisible walls
Delineated by
Crossing streets
And avenues
That separates us.
Laid out
Like black ribbons
Of asphalt.
Strangers identified
By speech pattern
And body language differences.
Our clothes
Dead giveaway
To trained observers.
Scurrying like rats
Between adjacent ghettos
Like linked villages
Forming bigger community.
A city.
Everyone hyper-focused
On own needs
Ignoring growing distress
Of a fellow citizen
Until too late.
Breaking societal taboo
Doing so.
Emotional disease exposure
Showing compassion
For strangers
Sitting or standing
Beside them.
Moving from house A
To job B
Then back again
Five days/week.
Like rodents
On a treadmill.
By invisible cue
At 7 pm
Everything shuts down.
One could shoot
A cannonball
Without hitting anyone.
As people rush
To the suburbs
For shopping.
Small town forced
Into cityhood.
Therisa © 2018
Author’s note: Written for this week’s Poets United midweek motif word prompt: city. This poem is based upon my experiences during the early to mid 1990s, as a student studying at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario. The national capital of Canada.
