POETRY: Casualties of War

A response to Decoy Gang War Victim, 1974, by Asco (photographer: Harry Gamboa, Jr.)

Those [epithets],
taking over our
street, she’d say,
faraway disgust in
her eye, our flagstone
patio receding,
the soft trickle of the
fountain
masking screams and shouts
from another time.
I played with my doll,
but she didn’t
understand,
either.
It wasn’t until I
grew up and left
that I realized,
roughly, finally—
that where you come from,
what language you speak,
how you struggle,
what your mother
cooks you for lunch—
these things are in no way
related to your worth.