EL BARRIO

Standing on weighted streets

                     backdrop silhouette’s     WATCHFUL CITY…

         dark sagging skies   probe      flatten barrios

unwanted citizens eating comida de pobres

congregating inside

tattered thresholds

             spreading edifice continually

                      fragmenting      communities/families/person

brown surplus fill bottom        spaces

familiar door   beckons  once nurturing hands cradled my face         now

deny tender labor

weak lights  shielding those     

            behind  cracks