Equals Copyright © Rob Lock 2010

Autumn equinox and here come gales
right on cue, snatching designer clothes
from our backs and helter skeltering them
to Mali, Tanzania and Malawi where they catch
on bushes till a passing needlewoman
rescues them, tacks a tear or two and sends
her child to school in them. Just for a day.

Here comes a whirling wind that whips the food
from trolleys trundling to the car park,
takes away those take-aways from podgy hands,
and whisks fast food through the stratosphere,
delivering to Nepal and Bangladesh where
stick thin families find a feast laid out
and get stuck in. Just for a day.

Here comes a gust fierce to lift every ATM
in town, leaving holes in walls where the holes-
in-the-wall once were, carrying cash
into the jet stream, transferring it to shanty towns
in any third world country not yet visited,
depositing it gently on banks of detritus
where needy hands withdraw it. Just for a day.

And here come the hungry and the poor
all that third world, knocking at the door,
asking when there’ll be one world, pray,
and justice done for more than just a day.