Читать книгу Hustle - David Tomas Martinez - Страница 13

6.

I shall wear my Chuck Taylors

beige guts aglow,

crease my khakis

to a sharp shank.

I will swing first

or shoot my mouth

at any tremble

of trouble.

A bandana grows

from the soiled edges

of my right pocket. Look how

it grows. Look.

When the moon slicks the night

motherly, me and my boys nibble

our beer bottles. And know

the slant of pride, the hubris

of a first tattoo: walking shirt off, chest out,

the edges raised on a fresh brocade of name.

And my family didn’t recognize pride:

being a father before seventeen,

running in a black gang, and

losing my tongue— burying it in the dirt of our yard.

When brought home in the back of cruisers,

lights let the neighbors in—on what was up.