Welfare Cheese

Welfare Cheese
By: Julianne Cox
September 19, 2004

Dilapidated homes
roll past my car window
as I drive into my
old rinky-dink hometown.

The paint chipped peeling roof
of Hardees bears the home
to the fast food lifers
who are the young mothers
of the sullen punk teens
crowded on dark corners
smoking cheap cigarettes.

My car violently thuds
as it hits the gaping
holes of broken pavement.
The stoplight signals red.

An oil burning rusted
Oldsmobile spews black smoke
in front of me as I
see the drunk local bum,
his name Step And A Half,
trying to hitch a short ride
to the next dumpy bar.

I hang a fast right towards
my parent’s small log home.
I sulk in saddened by
poverty in my town.

I open the fridge door
and see upon the shelf
the white and blue cardboard
box of fresh welfare cheese.
The tears roll down my cheek
when I fetch the white bread
and make a cheese sandwich.


I wrote this for my english class this semester and I wanted to share it with you. I get to have it workshopped tomorrow in class. I'm really not that great at poetry, but I managed to write an entire poem metered in hexameter. Woooo!