WHERE HELL LOST ITS BURN

Red bricks lay
like carpet, surrounding
gutted tenements,
sprinkled broken glass
and debris, in heaps,
divided by abandoned
city streets,

I played in those
streets, windows now
empty, where spanish
music would blare, and
mothers would call when
dinner was ready,

a hollow shell
with the smell
of damp, charred smoke,
parents broke with no
stories to tell,

a place where hell
lost its burn, and
the best had turned
to s**t, to survive
was to have wit,
a place where the rich
would never dwell,

the Bronx, of broken
glass and debris,
where buoyant dreams
died on empty city streets.