by George Held
They have retreated to their Sanibel Islands
and gated estates on PRIVATE roads.
They share our space only at swank cancer
centers and diabetes clinics, where they,
in their Gucci loafers and Lauren leather
jackets, fondling their Vuitton handbags,
have to sit and wait just like the peons
in their knock-off Adidas sneaks and sweats.
This is two-tier America, the few million
gauzy plutocrats securely sheltered
from the castoff citizens of the shredded
middle class and the 50 million poor.
Can you see a specialist for a cure,
or must you die among the uninsured?
George Held's new book is After Shakespeare: Selected Sonnets.
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