The Eastside

THE EASTSIDE

Look at the cop
the Mexican mafia killed off of East Houston Street, just five minutes away from
home.
His body is paper, hole punched over and over and over again.
A rain
of brass casings, a thunder of stray dogs. A graveyard of
gangs and pigs, the reds, the red
and red.
Eastside child, Your mother tried
to flush you
in the bathroom of a Burger
King.
My Eastside, I do not surrender
to your sidewalks
of old diapers and cigarette boxes,
or your lonely women that cry on the curbs with blue faces.
The thread that hangs from my heel, connecting
me to you,
thin as smoke, will never wilt,

will never

wither.