Fresh flowers
sprout
From the ground
On Balmy Alley
Fresh
Homegrown flowers
Of the Frisco
Kind
Flora Homeboy/homegirl
Franciscus
Fresh flowers
The color of
Abuelita skin on
A spring day
Flowers with mouths
That spit rhymes
And kiss wounds
Both seen and unseen
Flowers whose
Petals tremble
To the bass heart
Of La Mission
Fresh flowers
Cut by the machete
Tongue of poets whose
Sweet sweat mango
Fragrance lives in their skin
Who climb the
Rooftops and declare the
Neighborhood theirs
Fresh flowers
Whose roots twist and turn
Under the concrete, so deep
And so intricate that it can’t
Be pulled out or killed by the
Pesticide real estate cloud
Fresh flowers
Have sprouted and they
Have been here for generations
And are reborn on this concrete
Alley, on this floating island
Known as San Francisco
Fresh flowers that
Have floated down black
Rivers and spread its fragrance
Over fences and barriers meant
To keep us out
The flowers got
Names too:
Sean
Tracy
Laurenthia
Kim
Utopia
Eric
Alphonso
Bill
Flowers whose
Faces, stems fragrance
Cannot be evicted
And the flowers
Become faces and the
Faces become murals
And the murals are
Us and they are ours
Despite what the
Tourists (Short term and long term)
Think
© 2015 Tony Robles