On Parenting After the Demolition of Cabrini Green

By Gabriel DeCrease

When I find myself
with children of my own,
what wisdom will I possibly have to offer
as I raise them in neighborhoods
where candy stores actually sell candy, at all,
where things are open all day
and close for the night,
where I will have no excuses
to be like the fathers that stayed with us
whose smoke and whose violence I grew up inside,
inside out, where it will be no accomplishment at all
for my children to make it to the end of the night?
I will pity them for their better world.
They will pity me for my fear of a better world.
They will not understand how or why
I will try so hard to prove to them what I am.

 

Published January 2009