Dolores Street Poem by Victor Hernandez Cruz

Through the Victorians
spinning a wool of music
the gang in the breeze
Boys and girls headed toward the
park
No longer in my view
Wondering now what they doing
How they divide
Hold hands
Lay on benches
Breathe

Dolores park green waving
mounds
where downtown looks like you
could stretch and scratch it
You can see the water
smaller the other side
connected with the bay bridge
from this angle
Appears as a cowboy rope
Lasso

Back to the park
the across the street is windows
Suggest
Eyes which could have been looking
at savannahs / stretches
had it not been for transportation
The city settling
Up from planks and kerosense lamps
Rugged

Small vocabularies full of passion
Found a gold sliver on the way
to my fruits
Raise the air fair
Let the news out
Rush like Hawaiian beer

The big radio of the teenagers
comes again
looking through the curtain
Look them wasted
Clothes wrinkled
Eyes fresh like just arrived mushrooms
they move to the interior of the Mission
where they hang out / generations on the streets