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Free Entry 2, Week 5

Third World

What does it feel like or look like
to be so poverty stricken, so third worldly
that you can’t even accept aid from other countries,
your run ways are crowded and can’t handle
the incoming flights? The air traffic controllers directing
in planes with a walkie talkie system, the three men over
in the tall grass, could bring this whole operation to a stall if they
so wished, trying to guide the aid here,
showing the Chinese, first to arrive, where to stand their flag.
When natural disasters strike, we’ve learned to run out and hunt for
aluminum goods, C batteries, and distilled water, but where do you
run if the streets are littered with loitering dead bodies?
Where do you run if your shattered leg can barely stand to rest
beside you? Could you run if you’re three days past dehydration?

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