Carisia, Dawn, and Keith shrill
over the music, tagging each other
with super-soakers, whipping
through a street littered with empty
hug bottles and candy wrappers

that's dope!, Derrick says
when we stumble upon
police tape lining a neighborhood
where blaring speakers are piled
like totems above sweaty bodies

riding backbeats a Dj unleashes
from his makeshift booth
among the warped wooden
porches of shuffled cards
and scattered dominoes

i was in the eighth grade when
my boy Adrian and i crashed
Ashli's party and refused to leave
'til we were chased away by her
older brother and some classmates

we barely escaped the ice water
hurled at us from a cooler, shrieking
as loud as the kids at this block party
on a street tourists skip over, looking
for the city they've seen in postcards