Our streets are alive with traffic hums, tuba
blares, microphoned priests and paleta bells
the rapid drumming of tiny feet playing on
cement
open windows playing tiny bursts of work
songs,
full-voiced triumphs set to the sshhk shhk
shhk of bristled sweeps across brick tile floors
We are tin-can auto body shops with steely
brown eyes burning through sun-bronzed skin,
thick and weathered like the tires in stacks
around them
We are green hollenbeck hills, palm trees and
playgrounds
We are hand-painted storefronts and streetside
fruit stands,
sweet and fragrant under canvases of rainbow
We are dirt yard drawings made by children
and aging murals beaten down by sun and rain
and so many stares that dug deep inside them
We live forever partnered with our queen, la
reina de los angeles
watching over us like a silent mother,
huge and always present
even the sun
nestles into her in refuge
at the end of each day.
