For Bridgeport

Bottles roll aimlessly—kicked to collect

Dirt shamelessly. Roads licked with grime

And grit, colored shirts have codes, stained pits

Collared dogs wail sirens’ song—exist to haunt

and carry on. We fail to hear the crying men

locked in by wire, shut in again as blaring music

Invades the streets, we’re mocked and crushed

By wealthy beasts. Unless each heavy gun unloads

You’ll never hear the stories told of stealthy moms

with deafened sons who sever odds, who don’t out-run

the expectations placed on them to join the mass of

crying men and even then it’s quite the same

they barely seem to know our names. Each set of

reps hold signs poised high and ink their faces

for those who die, they mourn young boys

and take them too, by storm they claim each

avenue. The bridge it shakes. Why won’t it stretch

to save the penniless, ranting wretch?

Who sleeps beneath the bridge’s port,

and waves for chance of some comfort.

He sits in cave, he rocks and chants “they never

got to see me dance.” And while the dreams

of college fail, and seams of bonds

grow weak and frail, tears rarely meet the

ground; the babies hardly make a sound. There is no

option, we have no vote, there is no room

upon the boat. Some live assuaged by vain belief

they live content with state’s relief. Some don

uniforms with fast-food stench hell bent on saving

to mock the wretch. But for those who fail to conform

Destined to conquer the flailing worm

They simply refuse to live with doubts,

they live to tell—

they make it out.