San Jo

Orange stucco boasts of Mariscos,
interrupted
by purple tinted windows, hiding
inside cigarette smoking gangsters.
Coy fish engraved forearms throw
cards and half-scream curses
release pent up tobacco smoke.


I drink coffee with Saigon survivors
staring through lingeried and high heeled
waitresses, endlessly scratching scratchers.


I smell pho and ignore msg
and chew raw meat.

The 20,000 square-foot Sikh temple on the hill
was protested by the white neighborhood
at the bottom of the hill. They built it,
and it crowns the rise,
giving an Indian splendor
to my part of town priming
white washed fences
for new paints

the television simulates
a Crypt Nobel Prize Winner,
Norteños play rock, paper, scissors
with Sureños
and my friend mixes
records, matching beats
for gunshots, wails
for riffs.


When the train wrecks the gunshots
don't line up and the crowd
slumps, and the dj
runs.

Today djs don't try much,
spinning compact discs,
kicking back with their hands behind their heads
and taking naps between mp3's.

The Israeli's wanted photographs
of the synagogue that was
made into a gymnasium,
the locker rooms still cursed
with Hebrew letters. I told them
in America buildings change
all the time, but for money and
not by Cossacks.


I look through
the purple tinted windows at parking lots
filled with wanderers, and I wonder
if Saigon is anything like San Jose.