Peter's First Poem

Southwest Common Place

Three kids, two genders, three cultures

scamper and scramble up the narrow sidewalk

skimming across the cyclone fence

toward the parking lot, families gathered,

men dressed in second hand spandex

grays and whites with slashes of red or blue

sippin’ on Tecate or Bud Light or Shiner;

that life is foreign to the three

who cross the black tarred and chipped concrete sea

individual identity threads weaving like tumbled weeds

or bumbled bees all arrive at a plastic metal built Ford tough

playground designed by psychologists in white coats

in a place where leaves change colors and higher ed halls

of learning exist every three blocks.

Before the word complex becomes their life

this complex becomes a crock pot of Cruces;

elements, individual ingredients gather, simmer

under the sun, for a chunk of a day, then scamper,

then scramble, down the crooked streets to ranches,

and double-wides, and early settler homes in no-name

districts, distinct to no one

but the three who see a land foreign to you and me.

-Peter Brooks