Casualties from Katrina

Casualties from Katrina
should be added to the US bodycount
in Iraq.

The people and equipment
to evacuate the poor before the storm
are in Iraq.

The people and equipment
to rescue the trapped, the dying
are in Iraq.

FEMA's budget is in Iraq.

(truly, though, it's in the pockets
of the companies that sell at inflated
prices to our government and who will
gain sweetheart deals
to rebuild Orleans)

Some people don't want to leave New Orleans,
they know that such rebuilding
obliterates every trace of the Real,
in its place, a Vegas-style Belaggio

How is this "protecting the family"
These pieces of papers posted
with names of missing daughters, mothers, siblings

How is this "homeland security"
when home is underwater

Why are shoe-shopping and golf
the preferred activities
of our celebrity president
and secretary of state?

Bring on Fidel's hundred doctors

What terms will be coined to describe the deaths
that came not from the storm itself
but from the abandonment
the neglect
the poverty?
Collateral damage?

How many nursing homes of the poor dead
will be uncovered
memorials
of injustice
inequality
race and class in america