Pilsen
Late night sounds and smells entice
and we prowl like cats
thru Pilsen sidewalks and alleys.
The dank night breeze scatters paper
and other debris like malignant leaves
through mucky gutters.
Tiny shards of glass glitter
like cheap costume jewelry
under the harsh sodium street light
turning weedy vacant lots
into a pirate’s treasure chest.
Families gather on their front stoops
cooling their hot, tired bodies
in the night air watching the children run
through the furious spray of the pumps.
Santana blasts from the car stereos
belonging to dudes dancing
in place to the music,
embroidering colorful stories,
punctuating every other
damm! shit! y que la Chingada
with a drag from a joint
and a gulp of cold beer,
coolly eyeing the traffic going by.
Mournful mariachi music drifts out
of musty old bars wrapping their
ay-ay-aii-is down the side streets
in silken harmonies.
A longing beats itself against the ribs
breaking free to cry out to you:
They say you’re a slum Pilsen;
Mexican barrio and a half-way house
for the upwardly mobile—
a dumping ground for terminal souls
looking for oblivion in a fix or a bottle.
You are red, white and bluelined
in the sleek polyestered offices downtown talking shit about high risks
yet greedy landlords are busy making plans
to dress you up and sell you to the bored
tired of suburban living,
wanting excitement
without sacrificing convenience.
Your past crumbles in ruins
along the tracks that twist
through your heart like steel veins.
Elevated trains echo the unrest
in the minds of the easily displaced,
their anger and pride splashed
in violent colors trying vainly to hide
the decaying walls where long-dead
painted heroes call silently
for revolution.
Night surrenders to the gold streaks
washing the ancient buildings
in its pale corn yellow light.
The blare of car horns
splinter the morning stillness;
the pulse of your life’s blood quickens
as the men in dark clothes
and patient women huddle—
wizened flocks of blackbirds
waiting for the buses and vans
headed for the slaughterhouses
that will decide your future.
Notes:
“Pilsen” was first published in ECOS: A Latino Journal of People’s Culture and Literature 2, no. 1 (1982), and subsequently published in It’s Not About Dreams (Erato/Poetry, 2014). It is reprinted with permission of Kayla González Huertas.
This poem is part of the portfolio “Salima Rivera: A Chicago Rican Poet.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the March 2024 issue.
Source:
Poetry
(March 2024)
