I wrote this poem about a decade ago after visiting one of the many food pantries in Trenton. The state capital is a city of contradictions. Gold dome of the Statehouse, seat of government and power. Extreme poverty. Gun violence. Trenton is a small city by most standards, but its everyday residents are forced to fight the same forces poor and working-class people fight everywhere. Capitalism’s logic of low costs and high returns drove manufacturing from the city. Public resources atrophied or were purposefully eliminated by ideologues whose only connection to Trenton was when they were lobbying or voting. Racism resulted in white flight. And what was left? Read the poem.
Capital City
Elsewhere, the leaves change from green
to yellow and red. Here,
there are no trees, just concrete
littered with cigarette butts.
Elsewhere, a breeze, a squirrel,
a dog barking. Here, empty storefronts,
a drunk mutters on the far corner,
a truck gate rises as its ramp
is dropped to the sidewalk. The driver
rolls a pallet down, walks it through
the opened glass door, past eggplants
piled in crates, some with purple skin
bruised brown. Past the patrons
who pick through, seeking
a single, perfect, tear-shaped fruit.
It comes from a local farm,
he says of the produce.
They’re very supportive.
Eggplants, bananas, day-old bread,
blue tins of Danish butter cookies,
the ones passed around as gifts
for the holidays. The shelves
are half-bare at month’s end,
and a half dozen families
watch TV in the waiting room.
This in the capital city
of the second richest state
in the world’s richest country, he says.