The beat of the music
pumps like blood through the barrio.
It pulses from every open door,
pounds through speakers beside shops,
and is carried on the shoulders of young men.
At this corner a crowd mills--talking,
celebrating, drinking, and
on this day laughing.
Though his mind reels and thrashes,
his body stands like stone.
Breath comes quickly,
in small, shallow gulps,
then not at all.
A bursting chest screams out (air!)
and he gasps twice,
fighting concrete lungs
somehow frozen by Venus
into cold Medusa-stone.
