(Poem 10) Carry-Outs and Convenience Stores

Carry-Outs and Convenience Stores

At four a.m.

Placing their orders

Chicken wings and fries

Fried fish white bread on the Westside

Hungry for change and transformation

Longing for clean city streets and outreach

But instead we get carry-outs and

Convenience stores

Hoping to purchase the ticket to freedom

Fast cars and a home with a lawn

A place where death is under my shoe

And not in my front yard

A hand full of chips and sodas

Handing over wrinkled bills and rusty pennies

Paying to be malnourished of consciousness

Starving for hope where peace is tarnished

Instead of safe havens and brotherhood associations
We get carry-outs and convenience stores

Chicken wings and fries mambo sauce on the Southside

Politically fried fish and…