Early afternoon lines formed in front of the corner bodega as<\/p>\n
construction workers, letter carriers, and business owners<\/p>\n
came for street tacos and massive coolers of sweet tea,<\/p>\n
soda, horchata — absolutely anything to break the heat<\/p>\n
and haze of this late summer day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For years this corner of the world had thrived in a massive age<\/p>\n
of promise, industrial strength, entrepreneurship, and growth.<\/p>\n
Immigrants found the hardest work, and they created neighborhoods,<\/p>\n
churches, parks, and new welcome centers. All these were divided by<\/p>\n
interstates, run down by neglect as eyes and energy moved on.<\/p>\n
Who remained? Artists, families clinging to home, teenagers thrown away,<\/p>\n
many who had been homeless for far long — all who found safety in the<\/p>\n
brick factories, grain houses, lofts, and multi-storied homes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Time moves forward, and progress returns. Bigger! Better!<\/p>\n
newer but nothing for those who cobbled together safety<\/p>\n
as shaky as these eroding buildings, yet a safety that was theirs.<\/p>\n
Growing fainter, the chalk outline persisted on the sidewalk<\/p>\n
as boots tramped over it, motorcycles zoomed over with burning rubber,<\/p>\n
spits of iced sweet tea, soda, and horchata landing square.<\/p>\n
“Developer buying us out,” whispered one passing by.<\/p>\n
“He promised thousands more than he actually paid for<\/p>\n
my great-grandmother’s home,” sneered another.<\/p>\n
Every slur was slung and spun, heaped upon this nothing of a man.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dirty concrete under a blistering sun: that was the place of death,<\/p>\n
neatly marked and cordoned off that sweltering evening into darkest night<\/p>\n
just months before. Stoned to death, but from where did the stones come?<\/p>\n
Did slingshots send them, or did hands hold bricks and rocks firmly with each<\/p>\n
pounding, pounding, pounding? Again, nothing remained of this big shot.<\/p>\n
Boasting, greedy, loud, gluttonous, filthy-rich, scheming, conniving,<\/p>\n
he was Nothing. The outline alone remained for all to visit and trample.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Far above, a gargoyle guarded all below. Quiet and solemn.<\/p>\n
She perched high in the once gilded hotel now serving as a haunted house.<\/p>\n
Around her were the stones of history, the bricks of family houses,<\/p>\n
pebbles and rocks of people from these past hundred years.<\/p>\n
Her eyes shone, and a deep laugh came from deep in her concrete being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early afternoon lines formed in front of the corner bodega as construction workers, letter carriers, and business owners came for street tacos and massive coolers of sweet tea, soda, horchata — absolutely anything to break the heat and haze of this late summer day. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131252,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528\/revisions\/131252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}