San Domingo

You pay for the Metro but not for the ride. Go to Acevedo and go to the green gondola and get on the cable car to the top of the favelas and to San Domingo. Get off there, in that place you're not supposed to be but should be. Talk to the old woman with cataracts and cluck with her chickens at some passing threat that can't touch you. Turn to the cracked face of the man whose seen brothers and sisters come and go and watch his eyes stand against the sun reflecting the crumbling brick of his home. Look above you at the chicas on their scrubbed concrete balcony glistening with that same sun and the same cracks and strength and power and knowledge. You need to breathe and to walk.



Boys are down the street playing next to the god-fearers praying for the moon, for food enough for their sons, for San Domingo and the freshness of its juices and the coldness of its beers. Put one foot after the other 'cause it's steeper than you dare to recognize. Beneath the pavement the laughter roars and as you descend you'll see the crystal street water's mystical source and those ninos with buckets overflowing and no shirts and no shoes. And then they've seen you and you're dodging some bullets that would splash to make you seem human and to let you know that you are, breathing, and living and pounding the pavement to avoid the next deluge of poor boys' joy. Your mate is soaked and holding tight to each drop, clinging and not letting go of what that was for him and for you.



Twirl three times and step right and you'll see guns. Assault rifles and semi-automatics. Shoot-out unannounced two days before left young men dead. Somebody says it's not safe. Old man says it's not safe here. Entiendo y gracias. Finish the comfortable layer that that beer is and that that cigarette was because now you need to go. Put it all down and walk a little quicker, two feet forward and two eyes scanning.



German Shepard chained to the roof, tortured and howling. Oval faced freckled mob-boss on the hood of the car that shouldn't be there. Cloud cover passes over. Blaring music somewhere too near though the one on the left is beautiful don't touch Indiana just pass through you need to go now. The empanadas look delicious next to the rabbit cage and the toddler's kaleidoscope. Id live again as her to know what she knows. Four feet, eight feet and pitter pat on the black echoing into the illusory silence of this brick and brown place beyond your world.



Make a joke and laugh 'cause you're a little lost. Come around one no-go corner but men you dont wanna see there are lingering and have got nothing better to do. Eyes down and back turned with ears piercing even the air's shrieks of shrill belonging. The common senses matter and the uncommon ones are there for the taking. Santa and Rudolph and plastic wreaths and candycanes ground you in the rarity and heat of your moment. The sleigh ain't coming so move. Down the hill, follow the cable car line above and now you're seeing the wardrobe. Another world. At the end of those wires.

Look behind you and towel off. You're stepping in.