After Jumping Some Kids and Taking Their Money, 1988
We buy Cheetos and Fanta
with the money we stole.
Took it as they cried,
pried it loose with kicks to stomach
and stomps to the face.
Fingers grow orange
from the powder of our breakfast
and stomachs pop out
between ribs and belt buckles
as the soda slides down.
And Whooser laughs,
cheese staining his teeth,
his breath coming heavy
through busted lips.
I laugh also, lips stinging
from salt, from blood,
from smiles as we eat.
This is what we are given,
the children of the ghetto,
this is what we inherit,
a breakfast of chips,
skin pocked with dirt and scabs,
backs resting loosely
against graffitied alleys
as we laugh at fights,
at money stolen,
at the blood that drips loosely
down my left arm
and puddles.