Exiles

A wild guitar sings
from a dark corner
of a deep porch.

A defiant song shifts gears,
gathers voices, challenges
for primacy

as my neighborhood
offers a show
of slow rebellion.

To stay alive for long here
is to be in full revolt
simply by existing.

To stay alive here
is to have hard, hard work 
always in progress.

The ones who do live here?
I don’t know if they would say
they are thriving, though

in the midst of despair, 
they do not despair. They 
don’t know how to despair.

A wild guitar sings of this,
ringing from a dark corner
of a deep, crowded porch — 

I don’t know the song.