Neighborhood Violence We Never Talk About

BY Ingrid Andersson

Neighborhood Violence We Never Talk About
(dropping my child at school)

Streets as wide as landing-strips.
Sidewalks never laid.
Cars at stop signs over-running zebra stripes.
Pedestrians scattering like prey.
My son’s locked school.
No guns allowed (a sign on his way into 6th-grade).
Weedless playgrounds.
Weedless lawns.
Unswimmable blue-green lake.
The ghost-white bicycle where a boy was killed.
The Starbucks barrista: Have a good day!
Re-entering morning traffic under
another flooding rain.