Urbanite-Celina

Toys in shadows, piercing eyes emerging
Through the narrow veins of city, we
Have always lived like this. The city is
Our concrete amazon to prowl unseen
in tangled chaos; nighttime mothers us
as we are children of the underworld.
The foreigners step quick, look past me while
I watch them hard. I watch them shamelessly
With nothing else to be but raw like dogs
That weave within our pack, but even dogs
Can understand their worth. She held me dirty,
Wired and eased me to my peak and fell with me
Beyond this world. She fed me mangoes bare
And coke from bottle bottoms, bagel crusts
And lugged my weight through subway stairwells, sought
A bed in wrapper-softened dumpster trunks.
Like pirates, conquering brick and grainy ships
Like castles from my infant dreams, my eyes
Are neither open nor do they resist
I sensed my vision tilted when she said—
Is that not how we are to them?—the rest,
The foreign city dwellers tramp our streets
But I just need to smell the putrid air
And know they’re leaving soon. I suck in all
The city sits in, splendor, terror, truth,
Until I’m bursting with my home’s torment
And blow the dandelions scattering hands.