the rattle of bart overhead masks the echo of our footfalls on the 45th street underpass, a cool declivity where pink flowers push out from under the detritus between cracks in the asphalt and the smell of urine rises thickly on hot days. it is late, and rain taps on the leaves of the trees lining these streets. the liquor store on the corner of mlk has been tagged again and the ink glistens freshly. you have walked me home, and our good-nights are punctuated by a volley of gunshots sounding down the block in broken succession. of all the reasons to hold me closer. eight shots: numbers draw hope thin. hope, attenuated like this, is a bow, and it draws an opalescent note arcing gracefully against disaster and habitual brutality, against even the way we break ourselves into definitions and spaces that torment with their own meanings.

so, everyone run to the safe place within what we are. safety from the dreams that may come, here on this coil, a much mine as shakespeare's, as much yours. as much the warm space between our umbrellas where the shy vine of silence curls in on itself. as much as the mouth of this gun staring down the darkness. eight shots the prelude to what? a desperate hand crashing into the liquor store register, strangling the lie out of our scaffolding of politics and class, even our art. one, for our artifice choking down the day. two, for thinly veiled feudalism and its slim guise afforded by machines. three, for the safety here, behind our gods and all the ways we divert responsibility to an untouchable place. four, because no one likes to be told they live in fear. five, for honor. six, by accident. seven, a question where every answer is true. eight, the worth of human life. here is your ode to our beautiful scratching in the dirt.

spring rain falls out of the sky and makes a soft sound on the pavement as it lands, its hush a white curtain pulled over this block, over the glow of fluorescent lights, over the laundromat, over the drill of spilling liquid onto dirty linoleum, over sleeping houses and fragrant tangles of jasmine, over our still bodies with the faces turned out at the sound like startled deer. down the street, all his  intestines pouring into stunned hands for the 500 dollars in the register, for a few bottles of booze, for all the bottles of booze, for drug money. on the shelves, top ramen, potato chips, candy bars, lighters, beef jerky, and dish soap lined up dumbly, simple objects by which we are surrounded, that peer out blindly, armless, things to which we attribute worth. clouds shift, shrouded by their own humidity. stay here, in the safe place with my eyes still and on you.

we've been on the porch for fifteen minutes or the time it takes for a cigarette to dissolve between your lips. reduced to ash and a filter, smothered in a jam jar filled with dirty water. when you go, you wait at the edge of the fence and watch me turn the key in the lock. street light  glitters up from the wet sidewalk and reflects on the leaves of magnolias and the newly blossomed apple tree which houses small birds tucking their chins into the ruff of downy feathers. you are the other half of every whole thing and i stand on the threshold to watch you walk into the minefield of darkness.