Island

Sparkling sand, blue-green water
Palm trees waving in the breeze
Fruity drinks
And quaint tourist sights:
This is where you think I live.

But I see it at night
Beyond the confines of hotel walls
Outside the gate security of luxury:

The children whose aching stomachs
Cause them to cry in the streets each night;
The women, police ignoring their wounded cries,
Returned to their husbands time and again;
The men, just trying to get by,
Falling prey to whiskey, drugs;

The beatings, rapes, muggings-
Not by bad people
But by desperate ones,
The same ones who change the sheets
And clean the toilets
Of your fancy rooms.

My home is not worse than yours, or better,
It simply is.
And it is not an island paradise.