by Stazja McFayden

It was business as usual,
Saturday evening, Eleventh Street,
East Side,
dark, bad, dangerous side of town.
Somebody told me that's where jazz was.
All I could find was business as usual,
buildings boarded and silent,
music over and gone,
sidewalks littered and cracked.
hungry carnivorous entrepreneurs, loitering,
hovering, hanging on corners,
leaning on lampposts
doing what Daddy said
those people always do.
Predators oiled and tense
waiting for prey, ready to pounce, watching the traffic
and here comes this white woman
driving alone in a black Saturday night convertible
stopping to turn around
in the seamiest market in town.
Vendors surrounding, dealing direct to the user
offering merchandise
calling it nose
candy,
not drugs.
White woman courteous manner
just says no.
Driving away, 200 horsepower sales resistance,
leaving with blues
in my eyes
missing the jazz,
swallowed alive by crack
in jungle sidewalks.
Modern progressive
funeral dirge
composed by men on the street
conducting business as usual.