#nimbyism

sin hogar / in this house

elisa chavez

Todo el mundo
merece una casa

pero no quieres
pagarla.

¡Qué caro es
el camino alto!

Tu insistes: ningún
cambio sin reembolso.

Pues sí, ¡tiremos la
persona!

¿sabes qué elles
cuestan demasiado,
con sus recursos

y uñas sucias?
vale, creo que lo
sucio

es tus locuras:
son tu sagrado,
tu biblia;
envías los versos

a la alcaldesa
apuñaladas
con miles agujas.

Creo que es más fácil
culpar le desdichade
que abrir la billetera
las setenta veces siete
de Jesús.

Creo que
inventas monstruos

y les das las caras
de vecines.

In this house
we believe:

we’ve paid
enough.

What about
mismanagement?

Lying is illegal,
and so is
sitting down.

Trees are
people too.

Loaves and fishes are
nonrenewable
resources.

That’s just science,
unless it’s social
science.

Alert for young
single women: Men
with the faces of
dogs
have been spotted
in the park,

Men stuck with needles go door to door selling magazines. They let themselves in, flay my flatscreen in half, machete me and drink blood from my porcelain lungs, police say there’s nothing they can do.

A hole in the road has gained sentience and gravels my mouth while I sleep. My neighbors applaud, wokefully ringing my bed. Wake up! The city is dying!

The apartment blocks are maggot-ridden, wobbling with braids of concrete, their windows are packed full of bodies with limbs fused to bone looking for handouts desecrating and their teeth noise complaint and their self-respect rotting in piles and the teeth say

it’s time to make neighbors of you all.