540 Town Center, Saint Petersburg Hurricane Poem by James McLain

there's no elevator,
not for them.
black skin, wrinkled hands,
senior bones too weak to climb,
but they live high,
stuck in rooms while the storm rolls in,
Milton they called it,
a hurricane without mercy,
like all the others.

Thursday morning came,
the power gone,
the light snapped off
like the switch was pulled by a careless hand.
no fan, no fridge hum,
nothing but sweat and darkness
in the heat of this town.

what's shame?
you know it,
when you see the high-rises
down the street, lit up
like Christmas trees,
while the poor sit in silence,
wait for some miracle,
or just a working elevator.

and you wonder,
is it race, is it greed,
or just the world the way it is?
maybe it's all three,
and the shame
is nobody's.

or maybe it's ours.