For ye have the poor with you always . . .
Always at the street corner, always at our side, often at our mercy. The wild- eyed man blocks the subway-car aisle, slinging curses and entreaties. The gray madonna and her smudges of children hover outside the church, despair incarnate. The glib hustler in designer jeans glides down the movie line. The kids with the grimy windshield rags orbit the intersection. The old man with no eyes sits on the steam grates in winter in a wet cloud of pain. The obsequious panhandler waits outside the automated-teller machines, where wallets are...
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