Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
IX. Part 6
We bought a small house
along the river, in Southside barrio.
A shack I pried boards from the front door to get in-
half-acre of land in the back
heaped with decades of scrap-rusted wire fencing, creosote
railroad ties, tumbleweeds, a mountain of decaying
harvest never picked, weaving itself
slowly into the dirt again.
I gutted the plaster frame house,
nailed, puttied, roofed, plumbed,
poured cement, sheet-rocked, tiled, carpeted,
tore-out, re-set,
piled, burned, cleaned, cemented, installed,
washed and painted,
trimmed, pruned, shoveled, raked,
sawed, hammered, measured, stuccoed,
until,
calloused handed, muscle-firmed, sleek hard bodied,
our small house rose
from a charred, faded gravemarker,
a weather-rotted roost
for junkies and vagrants,
wind, rain, and sun splintered
jagged stories of storms on,
I corrected,
re-wrote upon
this plaster wood tablet,
our own version of love, family and power.
poem
by
Jimmy Santiago Baca
solid border
dashed border
dotted border
double border
groove border
ridge border
inset border
outset border
no border
blue
green
red
purple
cyan
gold
silver
black