"All the time in the ghetto, Violence".

"All the time in the ghetto, Violence"

   you can't spin on the taps
   there's a drought in the city
   blacks swarm the city's junk spots like flies

   there is a phenomenal aura
   beneath the subway-in-the-sky
   your jacket holds tighter to you
   as you play
   red light, green light
   with shivering addicts

   at the ball cage
   young men feel out the firmness of black thighs
   as girls feign resistance
   to com-modification

   the run:
   bare chests pulsing with sound systems
   shouts, scrape of sneakers on a tar court
   'til a wavelength moves through the block
   and the crowd parts like hair

   watch,
   you can trace the bullet with a pencil
   to the point of impact
   the gnashing teeth
   the head butting the ground
   the bulging eyes
   and the blood flattening the cement like
   an emasculated balloon

   then the evening turns pink
   and mothers sit by the body
   like ampersands