Particular Words in a Specific Order

An avalanche, or a meteor, catastrophe with arms and legs and a pen and a Peña
and it begins before there was ever going to be a problem, when the old residents
were the fresh residents and we all wanted to get to work four minutes earlier and
it seemed good at the time that everyone quit driving through the barrio.

Like gold plating on a ’90 Caprice, it seemed like a great idea at the time. Bring the
walls real high so that the interstate is gone. Get shade rolling down the sidewalks.
But without the sun in their eyes, scuff-boots crawled up, worms hungry for a piece
of dirt that they know would outgrow their stomachs before they could swell to snake size.

It was the timely knowledge of what would be, the whispers of mockingbirds, that
had Victorian windows looming over crumbling Chicano parks, tall bald cops looming over lowriders, the silence of an American dream looming over a place that used to breath. And the ears of the world hear English so much louder than Spanish, and Highland was shedding skin even though the snakes had up and left, and it had
all come and gone before the clouds had a chance to split up and shine sun on
the geriatric peace of a husk, looming over I-25; full-belly, belly-up, up-scale.