The dust will not settle for awhile.
In all likelihood, more will be reduced to dust,
to ash, to ruin,
At least for some.

While the middle tries to hold on to a slightly higher quality of life
than the middle of thirty years ago,
who held on tightly to a slightly higher quality of life
than the middle of thirty years before,
who moved out of comfortable tenements to small single family homes
and then worked two jobs
and left their children alone more often
neglecting them 50 weeks a year
for 2 weeks at the beach
and struggled to keep it all within reach
and called it progress
until the real bosses, the invisible ones, realized
that the good work of the two loving but nearly absentee parents
could be done by another couple down south
or further down south
or to the east
and the invisible bosses could make real money
while the middle sagged.

The sad cycle of who is placated just enough to feed
the beast of gluttony.
The illusion that the piece of the pie has gotten bigger and more delicious
as we merely are just temporarily
getting fattened
for the slaughter.