of a butterfly in el barrio or a stranger in paradise
Home; a place to rest your feet, a place where you can sleep. Man, a place where you can shit, and no one can complain.
My Home / el barrio where people rest their feet outside on the fire escapes, where i have a place to sleep with my brothers, sisters, cousins oh yes, and Rover all in the same bed. / where no can smell shit ’cause we’ve been living in it all our lives (we’re immune to its stink)
My home; where on hot summer days people gather on the grandstands / the fire escapes and in the box seats/ the stoops and cheer our home gang’s stickball team (they call themselves “the new york junkies”).
and on those cool summer evenings
we hang our legs from the windows /
the roofs / the fire escapes while eating pop corn and sippin coke / or snorting it / shooting it and watch the Saturday evening gang-fights.
yes, this is home / our paradises and you’re always welcomed as long as you’re poor.
and it was here / in my home that a butterfly happened to wing by he was easily spotted as a UFO because of all his beautiful colors
he flew over the buildings / through the lots / around home plate a sewer top in the middle of the street
he flew in his dance about manner.
and i almost cried when i saw children reaching reaching out for him reaching for hope for love / for that lost dream
and he continued dancing / or maybe flying away away to save his beauty from these love-hungry children
he flew he flew and i cried when he fell down the sewer / now he was part of us.