of a butterfly in el barrio or a stranger in paradise
Home;
a place to rest your feet,
a place where you can sleep.
Man,
a place where you can shit,
and no one can complain.
My Home / el barrio
where people rest their feet
outside on the fire escapes,
where i have a place to sleep
with my brothers, sisters, cousins
oh yes, and Rover
all in the same bed.
/ where no can smell shit
'cause we've been living in it
all our lives
(we're immune to its stink)
My home;
where on hot summer days
people gather on the grandstands /
the fire escapes
and in the box seats/
the stoops
and cheer our home gang's stickball team
(they call themselves "the new york junkies").
and on those cool summer evenings
we hang our legs from the windows /
the roofs / the fire escapes
while eating pop corn and sippin coke
/ or snorting it / shooting it
and watch the Saturday evening gang-fights.
yes, this is home / our paradises
and you're always welcomed
as long as you're poor.
and it was here / in my home
that a butterfly happened to wing by
he was easily spotted as a UFO
because of all his beautiful colors
he flew over the buildings /
through the lots /
around home plate a sewer top
in the middle of the street
he flew
in his dance about manner.
and i almost cried when i saw children reaching
reaching out for him reaching for hope
for love /
for that lost dream
and he continued dancing / or maybe flying
away
away to save his beauty from these love-hungry
children
he flew he flew
and i cried
when he fell down the sewer /
now he was part of us.
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, "of a butterfly in el barrio or a stranger in paradise" from Hey Yo! Yo Soy!: 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry A Bilingual Edition. Copyright © 2012 by Jesus Papoleto Melendez. Reprinted by permission of 2Leaf Press.
Source:
Hey Yo! Yo Soy!: 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry A Bilingual Edition
(2Leaf Press, 2012)
