He grinds the butt under his boot, and breathes a white rope of smoke westward into the black sky, Over the woods where Mama says Eastside kids used to could find arrowheads but have long since been bled dry. And eulogizing that wild old city, Where he had once found his peace, He points the bottle like a cannon down from the ridge, and out into the sprawl. "It's like they think downtown's cute, so they move in, and turn it into a god-damned mall."

As they hotboxed that tricked-out Japanese rocket, I stole breaths through the window, cracked open, tinted dark. I was stuck in between the fear of pissing cloudy and the fear of coming off looking like a narc. They wore invincibility as if it were fine linen, Like kids from that side of the mountain often seemed to do. Holding my breath, I regretted picking their lunchroom table, and exhaled as we neared my parents’ block. We passed the squat green sign. They dropped the N-bomb. “Uh oh, City of Birmingham. Be sure to keep your doors locked.” I said, “Goddammit…

I don't want to live in a tiny kingdom. I don't want to live beyond the city walls. I don't want to hide in my sin in a tiny kingdom. I don't want to die beyond the city walls.

He and his sister are forever bent mid-laugh in black-and-white, in afros, in paisley, in youth. His finger smudges the out-of-focus brick apartments. He nods his greying head catty-corner to the empty lot, tangled with kudzu. The track-hoe groans behind the weedy curtain. (We hear that condos will be going up soon.) Up the street, another building strangled with chain-link, they’ve already boarded up the doors. The dumpsters runneth over with soggy blankets and broken chairs. He says, "But, yeah, we've been here since '64."

We don't want to live in a tiny kingdom. We don't want to live beyond the city walls. We don't want the city turned into a tiny kingdom. We don't want nobody buried beneath the city walls. Tear down the city walls!