All real living is meeting.—Martin Buber
It’s important to get the basics.—Mahnaz Saberi

They can hear the bulldozers rumble down, to raze all
their makeshift dwellings in the camp. Real
people live here, but those living
nearby complain of noise and theft. Fear is
what fuels the brightly-lit machinery, this violent meeting.

One woman, 44, a shed-dweller, says it’s
urgent to save what’s important
for her friends―blankets, flashlights, a grill—to
warn them that their plywood shanties will get
no mercy. Life here is the
splintered furniture of poverty, where stars are the only basics.