The homeless camp along Kahului Beach Road

in the few yards between concrete road barriers

and waterline lies

contested of course by the county fathers

as a public health menace

their go-to ejection card since the hippie days

these folks don’t camp

they inhabit gutted cars

and evade and collect fat driftwood

bowling ashore

humans yearning for walls or windbreak

they live

as best they can

resourceful at a bony elbow of Maui with no remorse

outside of an unflinching economic edifice

of outpriced and non-existent housing

l like a feature new this week

the American flag tied to the top of a makeshift flagpole

wind-whipped

intact

as if we need to be reminded–and we do–

that this hovel is part of the United States of America