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Those who ride in convoys of gold
Should be mindful of the women
Who kneel by those village potholes
They are clothed in rags
Famished to the bones
But they are not like Ani
The famous mad woman of Utaja
They wore hunger with pride
Neither cursing God
Nor blaming man
Their only crime is poverty
Those who live in fenced houses
With big dogs that speak English
Do not ignore
The threat of these poor things of the world
They slave their lives at your doors
That their children too may go to school
Children from those junks and shacks
Can find their ways to the palaces of plenty
While the wealthy ones haggle their fates in endless ruins?
It was God who blessed the ghetto
With many fatherless children
He might just turn the table round
The world is burdened with such mysteries
Do you not know?
© Olatuja Oloyede
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