matches preliminary

what business
a boy like me has writing
about city streets and projects
when in my blood runs concrete
side walks and manicured lawns
I don't personally
know any bums with claw hands
and donutcups filled silver and
I haven't seen the roaches in the
flour and the sugar and the fridge
all the cupboards -- they're even
in the toilet, goddamn pests --
but my mom(ther) wasn't so lucky
and she sits me down still
sometimes and tells me stories
of the projects: how she
watched a boy coming running
down the hill in flames, and her
grandmother push him to the
ground and with her palms
and her forearms pounded him out
and that was how i learned not
to play with matches she says
and that's how I learned too