They built a tower
for those of moderate income.
They placed a redline
around this tower—
camouflaged its identity.
The people of the tower
did get poorer,
and in time,
this list got longer.
So, they built another tower,
and another and another.
The dominos of poverty
formed a pattern of towers.
The patterns multiplied,
and so did the redlines.
No one outside the towers,
cared about the towers.
With age came neglect—
cracks formed tributaries on walls,
plaster and paint fell like hail.
It might be sunny outside,
but the ceilings knew precipitation.
Appliances, doors, and windows,
broken like the system.
A buffet of trash a-plenty,
a party for roaches, mice, and rats.
If inspectors paid visits,
they’d write up reports
to be filed under “inaction.”
They got paid for work not done,
like the politicians who lie
and pick your pockets.
The violations multiplied
into an explosion.
One tower’s wall collapsed,
but no one was hurt.
The tower was declared unsafe.
The poor were evacuated
to temporary shelters.
Was the culprit an unchecked boiler
or a faulty chimney?
The city plans to investigate,
but we know why that tower fell.
Like that flick of the finger
when playing dominoes,
which tower will fall next?
*
Patricia Carragon is known throughout New York City as an energetic and indefatigable writer/poet/curator who runs the long-running and popular Brownstone Poets Reading Series, promoting poetry nationally and internationally. She is the editor of the online journal, Sense and Sensibility Haiku, and an emerging photographer. Her work is widely published and she is the author of the The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada, 2017); a haiku/photography chapbook on cats, Meowku (Poets Wear Prada, 2019); and her debut novel, Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press, 2020). Her poetry collections comprise Innocence (Finishing Line Press, 2017), Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010), and Journey to the Center of My Mind (Rogue Scholars Press, 2005). Her latest jazz poetry collection is Stranger on the Shore (Human Error Publishing, 2026).
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