The Big Con

riverbed filling up
with the blues
whites and reds
of homeless camps

with ‘liberated’ shopping
carts randomly strewn
through the camps and
their ragged peripheries

the ever-increasing
cost to society of the
sale of the public sphere
to private interests

the billionaires

but as good consumers
must only see what
our owners’ publicists
con us into seeing

though most seem
to swallow the lie
in our core, we suckers eventually
inevitably feel the con and see

our reality

–LE – 4/25/25