Where She Lived

Where she lived the onyx night was cracked open by gunfire
and the sillowhette of her sister’s head shaking, ‘no, no, no’.

Where she lived the music told secrets in a code of perfect percussion and crept into the outside of small houses that had no windowpanes

Where she lived the DJ played while the deal was made and her brother nodded his head to the new song, ‘yes, yes, yes’

Tongues of men tripped drunk on sticky phrases to call out to her where she lived
Saying, “come, come here, come here”

The heat of the sun bent the policemen’s pistol to aim down below, where she lived
And she knelt lower still
So she lived
to conjur up demons that one day would work on her behalf

And the trigger itched
And the soles of sandals smacked dances
And the rhythm was fierce
And the concrete staircase had 120 steps

But she lived
to prohesize about the world’s end
to her grandchildren who watched the black
sky bleed and made up their own stories about how one day everything where they lived
would be different