Penned Hopes

The urban fragrance: gasoline decay, fried spirits on Friday.
Sins smeared over the brick, cresting tobacco smoke
along the free-trade coffee and ironic t-shirt assembly line.
The rubber soles skid on scabbed concrete,
no thundering, only hail-steps. Quickly now.
Compressed gas ignites neon; revel in plastic hookers,
tattooed with age and nipples and twenty-two ninety-nine.
Mannequin men with their arms raised,
guns pointed at their hole-scarfed hearts,
black and black and brown like home.
“It’s a freak show out here.”
Pull up your hood. Hail-steps, hail-steps.