Crime is down

That's what city officials say.

They preach a narrative that it is.

 In the hood, at the dirt fringe of a small lot,

 men sit on rusted folding chairs drinking,

 at peace with the fact that they might get shot.

 Crime is down.

 But not here.

 Here it's not safe to go out,

 to shop, to let children out to play,

 to sit or stand in the sun and talk.

  Crime is down.

  On the stoops of derelict houses

  quick-fisted young men spill about.

  They don't feel it.

  I don't feel it.

  On a cracked plastic milk crate

  a dignified man with one bad eye

  stares into the distance and conjures

  a safer place where crime is down.