The
Siren Rings Days and Nights
Laijon
Liu 20200331
the siren rings days and nights in Jackson Heights
This proud bustling capital of the new America
now vacant and quiet like the streets of plundered Troy
piercing sound randomly traces the nearby streets
that distinctive pitch strikes the bell of heart
the dream-chasers, the naysayers of ill-fate
cramped in the share-room houses for their crumbs
their low-income pits, undocumented slum-floors
are the topics of moral diseases or undeserved faith
war draws a line, plague draws a line, prosperity
draws a huge cock-girth line between class and trash
gagged and they laugh at their own misfortunes
in shit( w)hole life they can't tell that shit smells
Oh, plumbers, dishwashers, and delivery guys
are countless immunized rodents and super spreaders
at their retirement age they line up by the pearly gates
the tickets they've paid with their backbreaking pains
the siren rings again, in a stone's throw distance
another fearless soul needs breathing support
somewhere away his family texts him 5 times today
their social distancing measured by ocean and borders
probably he has never thought of dialing 911, not him
because he has escaped the desert heat and ICE raids
he has stood on his own two feet with his rough hands
and now he's in critical bed, plugged to an oxygen tube
still thinking about his morning shift, his Friday check
the siren rings again, circling this un-American neighborhood
that sound of help somehow rings like the angel's bell.
