YOU'RE my Window to the Barrio?

YOU'RE my window into the barrio?

with your skinny jeans and loafers

and a scarf in july?

YOU'RE my window into the barrio?

YOU'RE my window into the streets?

the product of a bleak life,

street beatings and heat?

YOU'RE my window into the barrio?

YOU'RE my window into the barrio?

With a culture oh so strong

yet besieged in all directions,

subsumed in all its sections

YOU'RE

my window

into the barrio?

If YOU'RE my window into the barrio,

I can't see it in your eyes.

I can't look through the windows of your soul and see the concrete, the asphalt, the split pavement

of the barrio

I can't see the food

and the laughter

the tears 

and the gritting of the teeth

and the choices that were made

irreversible

but never irredeemable.

YOU"RE my window into the barrio?

No.

I see a forced adoption.

A gentrification extermination borne of idle curiosity taken to new heights.

yet YOU'RE my window to the barrio.

I must shake my head at you

ball my fist at you

and lower my eyes in shame for you

for your ignorance

for your lack

I look into the windows of your soul, oh my "Window to...the Barrio"

through cracks of subtle glass that can't decide what it's seeing or what you're looking at

to the outside

to a barrio with no substance

a place with no trials

a place not needing perseverance

a place devoid

of the laughter of children

the weary smiles of unbroken men

and the straight back-boned, stooped backs of working women

loving and caring

hoping and swearing

in a million different dialects of one single human language;

in struggle

in faith

in hopes of something better

YOU'RE my window to that barrio

and you lack

Author's Note

1)What do you think about "into the barrio" becoming "to the barrio"?
2)"through cracks of subtle glass that can't decide what it's seeing" or looking At?
keep in mind the rhythm and the position before you dismiss one offhand