Urban Warming

Stoned by no Rosetta,

merchants allowed through the fence

learn to misspeak “black speak,”

in Edgar’s harbor village,

at HipHop Fish & Chicken

on Route number 4 × 10.

“Baby Girl” becomes XX.

“My Man” assumes all XY.

For salt & pepper curls,

& baby stroller crowds,

their broadcast is the same:

“Baby Girl, your diabetes

is ready.” “Main Man, your

stroke order is up.”

They know their audience:

french fried lives, french fried

luck, french fried us.

They know corner markets

of cornered markets, seldom

scale the wall. Their shit

is always hot. Their shit is

always cheap. Their shit is

always landmark of poison

in pens, along with: windows

wearing boards, hubcaps

leaning curbs, the sound of

“bitch,” the sound of “mother-

fucker,” the sound of “niggah”

sounding off, projectile vomiting

from children’s lips — our hush

puppy young, made beasts

behind these bars. Some days

you will see them, dirt bike

knights, riding Edmondson

Avenue, armor-less. They are

wheelies, jousting against traffic,

wheelies, jousting against stop-

lights, gas tanks bleeding out

on stretchers, as sirens serenade,

metal flies hover. There are

skeletons of chickens scattered on

the ground. There are meeting bones

of children fractured in the street,

cordoned off.

This is urban warming. This is

underwear in exhibition, pants

saddened to sag, hanging off ass

cracks, like wet clothes on a line.

This is the ecology of locks, since

our country is locks, since our

color is locks, since this block is

locked. When your order is up,

you will eat anything tossed inside

the cage.