Freedom is the Potential to Spend one's time in any fashion One Determines--Gil Scott-Heron

Tree crowns
look like
mountain
tops
& sky lines
look
like ocean views,

deflated
men
exit OTB's

thier dreams
dismantled--
yesterday's news.

Mother sits
next to child
a wall
of hostility
in the air,
rocked by the
movement
of the train,
the child,
she doesn't
stare.

Project
boys
rig intercom
systems
love heavy on
thier hearts,
anything just
to ring her...

Recycling
bins sit
next to
Redemption
Centers,
Sundays the hats
as varied
as Africa

a laundry
basket
so full
it regurgitates
it's contents,

clothes
spill over
all over
the carpet,

horses
are metal
with the
glitziest
of rims
sneakers land
on concrete
hopscotch
next to
garbage bins.

Cardboard
smelling
streets
subways
of wet
metal
steam
whistles
constanly
out of a
forgotten
kettle.

a little
brown
girl
sits at
a shaky
kitchen table
the ripped
plastic
digs
into her
young skin
she eats
salt fish
and looks
out the
window
as a plastic
clock
bought on
Flatbush
chips
away at
her
lifetime.