Aliso
Village. East L.A.
Welfare/unemployment/teenposts.
Brown/black villagers
wade in a sea of stucco green
imitating
cool, as 14-year-old
girls, with babies by their feet,
sing oldies from darkened porches,
here, across the L.A. River,
concrete
border
of scrawled walls,
railroad tracks, and sweatshops,
here, where we remade revolution
in
our images. Here
where at 18 years old and dying
I asked her to marry me.
I
carry the village in tattoos
across my arms.
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