Streets of Gold

They asked for their ancestors after dark
With photographs, flowers, and red bean rice.

Petit gens were suckled by their mothers
Near the fire who came to hear Leah,
Mambo Voudouisant from Port au Prince,
Whose third eye makes dolls in Little Haiti.

She will summon with them all saints tonight,
African, Creole, and European,
For unemployed men in the neighborhood
Where junk cars cost little more than Simone
Who was baptized the same on the boat lift
But calls herself My Sin point of purchase.