Middle-Class Dropouts

1.

in this new memory,

the scene is brightly

coloured & vivid.

colour brown is primary.

rust-brown epidermis:

the city is hills & it is valleys

& in some places,

like eczema patches,

modern scabs punctuate

the red-brown stretch of

roofskin

with the factory hue

of new-tech architecture.

2.

from where we sit,

the epidermis is all we can see

& the trees & the blue sky.

the rest is left to be imagined:

the dermal bulbs of concrete

beneath every roof unit,

the old ones from the earlier days

of this city’s civilisation,

stuff of poetry;

& the ones that have just recently

undergone renewal,

adjoined to the scabs,

with new paint, new insides,

new bright chocolate-

brown christian

family lodged in the skin,

just newly moved in

from a much saner city,

with its cleaner air, curbside

cafés, breakfast shops

& much more serene

streets,

less depravity

& certainly

less roadside shacks

& slums & hooligans

smoking hemp

& having sex-

ual intercourse

in the open,

in the market,

everywhere!

3.

we know of their curled-down

lipsides and their moral

civilized critique

we have lived close enough

to them, our (then, only thought)

sins & inadequacies—

our poverty—

tucked away under

our good surfaces,

their good surface

godly,

conforming children—

sponsored,

not wanting a thing.

4.

we knew unease surely,

but not how fast our realities

could be overturned.

we sat in air-conditioned privilege

in our uneasy

privileged seats,

& watched through car glass

the city to be judged.

a soft prayer,

we only watched, didn’t judge,

because we knew we very probably

would, one day, be on the other side

of the glass. watched

& judged.

5.

gentrification spreads like a sure disease

one day we won’t even be able to live here.