Poem Draft: West Oakland Invocation

West Oakland Invocation
After Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Blood Gang Call”

Calling all scrap metal pickers,
	the ones wearing leaden paint instead of blue jeans
Calling all watermelon & cherry vendors,
	come down the avenue to this traffic light
Calling all asbestos ceiling scrapers,
	you, yes, you the ones with your faces like bandits
Calling all barbwire twisters
	caught in the tetanus spell of puncture wound
Calling all crane operators
	high up in the heaven of diesel smoke, leather faced
Calling all corner store priests
	& corner store nuns & corner store saints worshiping cash money
Calling all police line crossers
	in the coroner van, in the assembly bed of bag ladies
Calling all cement pourers
	kneeling at the Krylon symbols chanting “Amen”
Calling all weapon concealers
	dropping shells in the form of another brother gone
Calling all micro mini skirts
	kicking lust down the Lower Bottoms
Calling all Cadillac shiners
	pimpin’ the sugary womb in search of babygirl
Calling all backhoe pilots
	Excavating the dregs of this city grave, anonymous
Calling all freeway weavers
	threading your arteries and veins with seismic retrofitting
Calling all scrap metal pickers,
	the old ones wearing garbage bag chic.