Poor White Trash

Poor White Trash By Patrick Kelly The sun sinks low over shanty town there, a sweating woman sits on a dilapidated porch. She sees herself in the eye of her mind and pictures appear of what might have been. She retains her rocker and sweats in unquenched heat, unrelenting ferocity of the beaten down poor. With a cigarette between chap lips, she fights off the need to cook, her energy long departed along with the good of life. In a silent rage, she screams in anguish yet, there is no one to listen and nowhere to run. Too suddenly, her hair has turned to gray. Her beauty, slowly decaying til all is lost. Now, wrinkles vanquish the smooth complexion of her youth. No longer does she smell the sweet aroma of her bed, its luster gone, along with her pride, with too much despair and too little money. Sometimes she walks the old dirt road, waiting for the heat to burn off and the night to embrace the coolness of the late hours. She dreams of things that might have been before youthful lust became a nightmare. She could have walked in beautiful gardens, her home, a pleasure to herself and her one time proud spirit. She wills the madness to subside, her thoughts splintered upon her return to realization and the unrelenting heat, dirty dishes and that drunk she calls a a husband. Wiping a hand across her sweaty brow, she turns to retrace her steps to her lowly shelter and the realisation that she is poor white trash.