Diffusion of Responsibility

Just a short poem about the unfortunate reality of American life...

DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY

 

Smiling with the smiles of tour guides

In a world of rubber squirrels and plastic cups.

 

It’s 6AM and the crowd inundates the sidewalks.

A tsunami.

Clogging revolving doors,

Exhausting escalators.

Plastered against elevator walls like mosquitoes,

Sucking blood out of the claustrophobic,

Sucking the city out of decaf lattes, gas pumps, spilled coca cola, drying acid puddles.

 

Why won’t anybody help the man

Who just clutched his chest and slid down the brick wall?

Who now lies, twitching, on the sun-scorched asphalt.

Why won’t anybody help him?