Paper Boys

It is 5 a.m.; 
most are not yet teenagers. 
They huddle in middle class garages 

beneath sixty watts worth of enlightenment 
folding papers and popping rubber bands 

to the tune of The American Dream. 

Their parents smile as they chase 
that radio, bike, or baseball glove, 
that ounce of old Columbian Gold, 
and rock, rock, rock and roll. 

They make more money than a Jat with six kids 
whose wife prepares dinner over cow dung, 
the family fortune on her nose, 
three worlds and hunger away. 

Paper boys pedal through rain grey mornings 
flinging papers like hand grenades.

(Four Quarters, La Salle Univ., 1985)