Tara Betts
Bass simmers behind lowered tinted windows
on the street.
The moon hangs its droopy eye in a dark face.
R& B wraps its veil over my midnight head.
Leaves whisper outside the window.
Crack heads rest in the hallway if
someone leaves the door open.
Storefronts sleep with steel grate eyelids closed.
Babies are made and bullets are lost.
My collarbone catches a sweet wind
in the shape of his lips.
Tara Betts a long-time Chicago resident, now lives in Brooklyn. She
is completing her MFA at New England College. Her writing appears in
several anthologies including Black Writing from Chicago: In the
World, Not of It? and the upcoming Wompology, Home Girls Make Some
Noise: Hip Hop Feminism and Hurricane Blues: How Katrina and Rita
Ravaged A Nation. Visit her website: www.tarabetts.net