We're All Vagrant Whores

In Taiwan, beggars are prostitutes.
They are, by and large, deformed,
maimed, and variously disabled.
Their pimps gather them up
each morning in vans and
drop them off at temples
where they spend all day
jangling tin cups of change;
those who frequent temples,
of course, are most likely
to be generous with those
less fortunate than themselves.
At the end of every day,
the beggars have their pimps
pick them up, promptly steal most
of their money, then drop them off
at some anonymous location where
they can sleep (maybe), stay dry
(in an ideal world), and live
just long enough to begin
the process again in the morning.
I think about these facts and
I wonder how alike we are,
all of us and those prostituted
vagrants, praying just
for a good night's sleep,
hoping against hope to make it
through one more painful day
just because we don't really
have a choice, believing
ceaselessly that there is some
better world awaiting us
just because believing otherwise
would be a sort of death and
not one of us would choose
to be mortal.

(2008)