East of A

Down by B and 11th back in the day before recovery and garden variety America came to call was culture and place like the home in my head for buzzing bees and being. Memory of magic and powder stuck to the cracking concrete like poetry loosed like large caliber bullets that sailed on and on and disappearing into the night/ into racial memory into the stomachs of young men who cried and died on these downtown streets of faded graffiti/of lovers left alone and lonely and deep like a weeping solo instrument. I heard jazz here seeping from the space between bricks that connects us/that remembers me when I forget who I am and just because this place is dreams that fuel painters life and lust just make all the sugar sweeter.