On a Dead Spaceship

On a dead spaceship drifting round a star,
the trapped inhabitants are born and die.
The engineers’ broad privileges lie
in engine room and solar panel power.
The fruit and vegetables and protein co-ops
are run by farmers with genetics skills:
the products of their dirt and careful kills
help service trade between the several groups.
Others — musicians, architects — can skip
along the paths of interlinking webs.
Beyond these gated pods that the rich carve
for their own selves (but still within the ship),
in useless parts, are born the lackluck plebs.
Heard but ignored, they just hunt rats or starve.