Highland Park, East New York
The park grew on all of us.
Overlooking the basketball courts
erected iron light poles with a lot to say.
It’s a way of being
the way they stopped working for the night.
A cut of time when children now turned adults
watched the adults now turned old play pick-up games.
High pitch from all their running kicks even on concrete.
Cross over, cross over to me and let me show you.
We paid
for dilapidation with scabs
exposed like brick, mud of dirt
a path of who
the fuck is next
(we cross over them like gliding).
We played without envy.
Our stomachs barked like
hounding minds glazing over
knots of clay that settled in our throats
A picture with a repertoire.
The park that was a city of dust
of glitter, where
we picked letters from them scabs
spelling out our names in pulp
in play.