In Batlimore I see hard faces. Lingering beneath the corner store that sells fried-chicken plates, wilted cilantro, lake trout and soda. Hard faces are creased and worn, porous and rough, as if made of sandpaper. Jessica’s car turns and I see a man in faded jeans, his clothing hangs from his body. Boys with afros sprint across the street. Sitting on a stoop an older couple eyes our car, our clothing, our white skin. Hard faces. Drugs. Blinking blue lights on the corners with cameras inside. Grey skies. Close the window, my friend says, this is a bad neighborhood. We drive on. It's street by street in this city, she says. Street by street.
Ducks float in polluted water at Fell’s Point. It rains and smells of body odor, gas and exhaust. Jessica studies public health. Her roommate is an MD/PhD who studies eyes and oncology. Their house is empty. They work all the time. They tell me about the metal in the water, the lead in the soil, the high-fructose corn syrup in fruit juice, the saturated-fat-laden foods served at the cafeteria for public health and medical students to eat.
We are cooking Pad Thai. We bought noodles at a Filipino store that smelled like rotten fruit and baking soda. We bought ginger and cilantro at Punjab, an Indian market selling palm oil, coconut water, yellow raisins, frozen fish, guava and saag. We are chopping and it’s raining. I see ducks chewing on trash. I see hard faces.
love the pictures & love the poetry! great post
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