Watts bleeds, leaving stained reminders
on dusty sidewalks. Here where I strut alone,
as glass lays broken by my feet
and a blanket of darkness is slung
across the wood shacks of nuestra colonia.
Watts bleeds, dripping from carcasses of dreams.
Where despair is old people sitting on torn patio sofas
with empty eyes and children running down alleys
with big sticks.
Watts bleeds on vacant lots and burned-out building
—temples desolated by a people’s rage.
Where fear is a deep river. Where hate is an overgrown weed.
Watts bleeds, even as we laugh, recall good times,
drink and welcome daylight through the broken windshield
of an old Impala.
Here is Watts of my youth, where teachers threw me
from classroom to classroom, not knowing where I could fit in.
Where I learned to fight or run, where I zigzagged down alleys,
jumped over fences, and raced by graffiti
on crumbling factory walls.
Where we played between the boxcars,
bleeding from the broken limbs and torn flesh,
and where years later we shot up heroin
in the playground of our childhood.
Watts bleeds as the shadow of the damned
engulfs all the chinga of our lives.
In the warmth of a summer night, gunshots echo their deadly song
through the silence of fear, prelude to a heartbeat.
Watts bleeds as I bled, getting laid-off from work,
standing by my baby’s crib, touching his soft cheek
and fingering his small hand, as dreams shatter again,
dreams of fathers for little men.
Watts bleeds and the city hemorrhages,
unable to stop the flow from this swollen and festering sore.
Oh bloom, you trampled flower, come alive as once
you tried to do from the ashes.
Watts, bleeding and angry, you will be free.