A poem by Hyattsville’s Jose R. Ballesteros, who is giving a reading Friday, inspired by his neighborhood. Used with permission. All rights reserved. 

The last door slams
on a courtyard once filled with
joyous wheeled equipment
shushing pleas for one more time around

the summer’s surviving window units
click on and buzz like dying cicadas
to dry off the sweat and tears
of the heartbroken
lured in with the promise
of tomorrows that they fear
won’t come soon enough

this is time of the bat
that in U shaped flight feeds
on mosquitoes plump with suburban blood
the time of the hummingbird moth
that visits potted plants
filling immigrants with want
for forest birds of youth

in the distance the train summons
an egg-faced moon
reflected in the eye of a fawn
grazing on the memory of day
her last eve before she is found
on side of the road rubbernecked
on our way to work.