by Jazmine Crandall
The economic fallout of the US-Israeli assault and Tehran’s retaliation is spreading fast, and pushing the most vulnerable towards disaster. —The Guardian, March 12, 2026
In the marble halls where voices echo
like coins dropped into deep, indifferent wells,
they debate the price of labor
as though it were a frivolous shadow;
weightless, distant, theoretical.
Outside, the morning opens its weary eyes.
A banker straightens his Hermes tie
that costs more than a week of someone's rent.
His salary is quite the dome;
built stone by stone, pension and bonus,
arches of security rising
towards stained-glass futures.
A manager clocks in,
midway up the ladder of breathing space.
Her wages are a narrow bridge—
not golden, not broken,
but sturdy enough to cross the river of bills
if the current stays calm.
And then there is the worker
whose hands smell of fryer oil and sanitizer,
whose chapped palms hold the ghosts
of a thousand barcodes,
and ears fatigue of a million complaints.
Their meager wage is a candle in winter.
Each hour they feed the flame,
yet the room refuses to grow warm.
And no one says the quiet truth aloud:
this fire was never meant to heat the house.
It was meant to prove endurance.
So the worker learns the mathematics of survival—
how many hours equal a gallon of milk
and a carton of eggs,
how many aching hours on torn soles
and blistered toes equal rent,
how many meals must disappear
so the light bill does not.
Jazmine Crandall is a Colombian-Cuban poet in Atlanta, Georgia. She's beginning her journey of sharing her poetry and strives to make a difference. Her work explores feminism, inequality, and the struggles of immigrants and the working class, using her writing to advocate for marginalized voices.
