My Block Poem by Angela Brown

Two blocks away
where yellow cabs
zip by without stopping
and the prostitute with the skinny legs
asks for a cigarette
from under her giant,
black umbrella,
in the corner's rain
where some children
are dangerous,
can tell our future
and bet on broken love
between the dreams,
I don't know where my hands begin
and my heart ends.
Oak trees line the sidewalk,
small birds carry spring twigs
above fast-food waste,
and the bold races of rats,
like ghosts of a lost memory,
point to the day of the week.
I don't know where the face of change
is not my own face.
A cold wind picks up.
A man abandons himself
to a tambourine and harmonica-
not praising, not denouncing,
only leaving this place with this sound.
I don't know where we will
end up and begin
but I want to note
that we have been here,
that we too were invisible
and we too were seen.