FOOL THAT I AM

the police don't allow just any neighborhood folks
to stand in front of the liquor store now
all them older guys who fought in wars
& walked to different states to live with relatives
& most of them that have lived over here all these years

they can't stand to lose those few minutes of signifying
before traipsing back to subsidy-heated flats
on gentryifying blocks & watching the court shows
noon hours reserved for sitting back & not answering
calls with 800-number prefixes on the caller id

"all due respect, officer, but you know who the dopefiends are; arrest the young punks pushin' that sucker-ass shit & they'll go away,"

i heard one say

& they did,
but that was before they found the dead prostitute
just at the end of my block. turn the corner & you run
right into the liquor store; can't miss the spot

where men respond to calls of pop, uncle, ol' man, young man
as they have for over two generations, drinking from styrofoam
cups of laced black coffee while recounting tales between the hours
of 3-5pm under the train tracks

three years running & each of them never fails
to speak to everyone within earshot
& sometimes from almost a block away
as mr. powell would do me a few times

three years running & my eyes have seen
them each morning as the days end & the
evenings begin

drinks of coffee & brown paper bags
weave reminiscences of days laboring
in slaughterhouses & steel plants
driving buses & garbage trucks

have left under the train tracks
& become hushed whispers
as condominiums sprout up
on vacant lots & the neighborhood
daycare centers close

but the liquor store stays open
until 8pm during the week
& the police only bother the boys
barely men who know to move

& coffee cups & paperbags
laugh aloud at what they know

been knowing all these years
because they never left home
even underneath the train tracks

H.
1-22-2006