Ghetto Blues

Children here have the life-span of flies But leave no Where flies squat a trail of sickness Breeds in the sharing of their space The same agony of shame on each face Death is loud here and we are silent who witness The garbage truck did not come yesterday The sun swelters the unburried cat The tarmac sizzles in the sheen of fat And the smell refuses to follow dreams away No one is bigger than washing the scum away But the pipes drip like saline into the veins And hands soaked with more than tobacco stains Fidget in the pockets that have fretted away