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Inspection

At the crack of dawn
Begins the daily roll call
Like a mother pigeon
Taking inventory from the night's losses
I inspect the ranks of the missing
For the missing
The night losses
The recently injured
The survivors
Future casualties

There's Harold
His perch at the BART entrance
Always a smile
Greeting passer-bys with a
"Morning, Ossifer!"
When I first met him
He told me he had dreams

"Gonna find my place!"
Now he only smiles
When I ask him if he's still
Looking for his place
He says he's happy
Not there
But happy
And no longer looking
One more needle mark
In his arm
Means not having to worry
About stuff like that

There's Muriel.
Was a beauty queen
Married and happy
Talks about her little boy Jimmy
How he could run and run
and run
Faster than them all
But couldn't run fast enough
One IED
One less Jimmy
Now she wanders the street
Looking for him
Saying he will come home
When he's finished running
Because he always has in the past

Then there's Danny
26 years old
And drunk all of the time
Says he can stop any time
Stopped twice last week
But why should he?
Will it change who he is?
Will it change what he is?
Ran away from home
Because he loved his best friend
It's not a new story
When a family disowns one of its own
Ironically, he came to San Francisco
And he never fit in
In the place where anyone can fit in
Cheap alcohol is cheaper than
$200 psychiatric sessions

And finally there's Jaime
Life of the party
Always something fun to say
Could make you laugh at a funeral
And then the notification
198 t-cells
Two below safety
She stopped laughing
Or making us laugh
And it kept dropping
Some one-night stand
Of lifetime proportions
I'd often try to comfort her
Today was not necessary
The police found her in a bathroom stall
Blood already dried over from
Where she opened her wrists

Each morning
I take inventory
Over the dispossessed
The forgotten
The abandoned
And I will do so
Until
someone finds me
It's what we all share in common

Learn more about this author, Duane Gundrum.
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