An incomplete first impression

Baltimore, you are a Catholic city,
when will your blood be turned into wine?
there are bullet marks next to your chalk drawings,
when will your kids stop fearing the dark?
there aren't enough night lights in the world to hide
the ringing of gunshots in their ears.
when will your playgrounds stop sounding like graveyards,
how many families  moved away today,
how many children not at school, today,
how many fathers, lost,
how many mothers, lost,
how many sirens did you hear, today?

Your Old Town Mall left vacant
its cobblestones filled with cigarettes,
Your Fells Point facade,
all pirates and streetcars and tourists and sex,
Your Baltimore Sun,
its prison windows say, "Light for All."

I can't see through your stained-glass churches,
I can't buy a candy bar without your bullet-proof corner shops,
I can't sleep, it's so dark, and
I can't walk at night, I have to take a taxi
to go two blocks.

I overheard your conversation, it
was near Orleans Street, you were a black man
hanging off a brick wall, you were laughing as you said,
"But the next day,  that motherfucka
was dead as a doorknob. Someone popped hi--"

Oh my god, I'm living in downtown Baltimore. 

There are Poets hanging from high shool rafters,
the joggers afraid of their own shadows, if
they wear headphones they gonna get
mugged, I leave work and friends
tell me, "Don't get jumped,"
life and death separated
by a single block.

I'm dreaming of an open parking spot,
one where you can park any day of the week,
and you don't have to leave on Monday or Tuesday,
there won't be any street cleaning on Wednesday,
there won't be a traffic ticket on Thursday and Friday,
maybe I can finally sleep in on Saturday, without
worrying if I'll be towed by Sunday.

I'm dreaming of a city without stoops,
without boarded-up tenements, without
blinds that are always closed, where people
look each other in eyes, where I'm not
reminded constantly of my hidden racism, 
where I can roam Patterson Park,
at night, naked of fear and prejudice, 
wearing only my wonder, 
and dip my feet into the waterfront and 
watch the sun rise over
a sailor's sky.