A Real Anaheim Story (Poem)

Do you remember that day on

Broadway and Magnolia?

That summer day you realized

that the bad guys wear badges,

that in this city, there are no good

guys, and your sins would be

paid on earth and not in the

afterlife—your condition: brown,

maybe too brown, bald-headed, and

poor, did I mention father had left

and mother spoke no english?

They held you without your consent,

as if they even asked for it;

someone complained that you were

bothering their customers for a nickel

or a dime to make a call and your

big mouth did not help as it rarely

did in the streets, where your enemies

also wore blue, and badges and

big boots that your knees would know

as they spread your skinny legs,

and touched you as no child should

be—others would be arrested for

sexual harassment, but not these

child predators with badges; and they

found nothing but your empty pockets,

not even lint to fill them; their search

for drugs? An excuse to remind

you who owned the streets—and then

the inevitable “good” cop that

“helped” you loosen up the handcuffs

that left marks on your wrist to

remind you of the freedom your

mother brought you to America for.

Jesus Cortez is the unofficial poet laureate of Anaheim--especially West Anaheim!