Nothing in Watts whispers.
Every open window is a shout,
a night dance to a driving
pulse that crashes through
the broken walls of a Jordan Downs
second-floor flat.
Conga sounds and synthesizers
compete against the drunken
laughter and angry talk
of young crips whose world
is bigger than this place
but never as important.
Here innocence and terror
are woven into the summer
breeze as the cries of the
’hood deliver sacrifices
of sound and flesh,
as a mother’s milk flows,
and the heat hangs on you
like a wet blanket.
All begins to blend, come apart
all is loving, destroying
while homegirls dance a jig
to a repertoire of police sirens.