I am Ashamed of Where I Come From

I am ashamed of 83rd Street.

Where I fell to my knees on a road of broken glass.

As my mother built a brick wall around our house and our father welded bars against the windows.

I fell to my knees trying to break free,

And my grandmothers corn flour hands against my rasped knees and my baby butter blubbery cheeks.

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I am ashamed of Nadeau Street.

Where men lock up their wives and gates are made tall so that you can’t climb over them.

Where in the morning there are clouds that settle in,

and beyond that fog so thick and dense, you can hear the church bells ring.

Street lights blink,

I think,

That hope looks just like this.

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I am ashamed of Century Boulevard.

Where you can make out the outline of the freeway against the backdrop of the sun set sky--

Looking like a cat’s cradle. And where an ugly woman smears her own shit on the walls of my sister’s front step.

And, that woman’s dirty kids rub their “ I am left all alone” skin--

With lotion to at least smell clean .

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I am ashamed of 79th Street.

Where women scream to you from balconies.

Men in cars chase child-women,

And cry for sex.

And me and my childhood self,

fell in love with the way,

He jumped to reach the top of the trees

To pick the ripest fruit for me.

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I am ashamed of 85th Place,

And the ways I played with fire.

I taught little girls how to rumba,

and the banana tree in the backyard jungle.

The yellow flower bells that tasted like lemons when you bit the stem,

The sounds of cars, and trains, and branches back then.

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I am ashamed of Beechwood Boulevard.

That beautiful street,

Where black avocados would fall to me.

And where a drunken Cuban Man, who beat his beloved and left blue roses to bloom on her battered brittle body

Would be.

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I am ashamed of Firth Boulevard,

Where now my family lives.

The little kids who walk out naked,

And how I sit on the porch to sing.

I sing to the pumpkin patch and the cactus that grows;

I sing:

-

I am ashamed

I am so ashamed

of how beautiful

where I come from actually is.

I am ashamed of the bushes of orchids that line the school gates and, the men who piss on them.

I am ashamed of the trees that wrench their roots free and, make hills on the broken sidewalks.

I am ashamed of the makeshift ponds that are born in the pot holes of the broken road when it rains.

-

I am ashamed.

God forgive me

For this place,

This place in which I was raised.

This concrete mother who grew me and for whom I know I was made.

My home.

For her,

I am ashamed.