Pride

by Ibi Zoboi

How to Save the Hood If my name was Robin I’d steal the tight corners Where hope meets certainty To form perfectly chiseled bricks Stacked high to make walls Surrounding my Bushwick Sometimes I don’t go to the other side Where Bed-Stuy or Fort Greene Are guarded and armed with coffee mugs And poodles on leashes I don’t see any more homeless pets Like the ones that used to gather In the junkyard on Wyckoff Avenue Beneath the overhead train tracks Like marks on the arms of junkies Who used to stumble down Knickerbocker Boxing the air, fighting the wind Suckerpunching a time When those graffiti-covered walls Used to be background canvases For old ladies in house slippers Pushing squeaky shopping carts Around those tight corners Where hope meets certainty Hope is wishing that corners will Turn into long, unending streets Where all the traffic lights turn green Certainty is knowing that corners Will always be home Where ninety-degree angles Are the constant shapes in our lives Always a sharp turn