I live in a strange city.

Here suffering is eloquent.

Joy a sudden trauma.

Curse words taste delightful.

Kisses are bitter lies.

Eyes make the best promises.

This place of potholes and behavior patterns

buckled under the stress of living.

I wonder how the children find shapes

in whispering clouds and starless nights.

How do we imagine ourselves

outside this hell?

Heaven is music rising

from hollow throats, torn paper,

scratch cuts, ancestral beats, 

sobbing strings and flaring horns.

Supplicating hands, arched backs

sweat testaments on dance floors.

Holy days are reserved

after Saturday night exorcisms.

Sermons spit in poetry.

Redemption found in the mouth

of street corner griots and those who just need

to speak their peace of mind.

Our pain is not professional.

Raw, discarded rubble scattered in random hoods

between flower beds and organic gardens.

East and West side.

Financial divides, color lines and imagined issues.

We are all struggling.

One hand deep in our pockets.

The other gripping smoked glass skylines

attempting not to shatter with the rising sun.