Mumia's Neighborhood

by Maria Poblet from the December 1999 Street Sheet, San Francisco's homeless newspaper

we live in mumia's neighborhood
we see what he saw
cops swoop down on our street to
frame us too
we live just off east 14th 198th 24th
we live in hunters point the fillmore
fruitvale west oakland
we rent rickety apartments trailers
basements
we watch ebmud cut off our water and
pg&e cut off our lights
we see what mumia saw
we write in our journals what he wrote
in the paper
we send letters to our dads in prison we
visit our sisters in jail
we live in mumia's neighborhood
he speaks to our cracked sidewalks
crooked fences cardboard shacks
he screams for the cops to stop locking
us up
he speaks and we hear him cause we
live right next door
we live in mumia's neighborhood
we demand that he come home