West Perrine, Florida

Bare, bird-chested boys play touch
football in the street, reenact 
WrestleMania in the fenced-in front yard. 

When an errant pass rocks a mailbox
the whole block takes off running.

After the game that never ends
is paused, a swarm of sweaty boys 
meander to the corner store
to buy a pickled egg, or a hot sausage. 

At Galvez and B Seafood 
they call the woman working
behind the counter Mami 
and order conch-fritters 
with french fries, squeeze
lemon juice over the conch, 
crisscrossing ketchup
and mustard over the juice.

Here, in this cut-out 
between Hemingway’s 
Key West home, 
and Jenkins’ Moonlight,
gunfire percolates
in the distance, insistent
as a metronome.

One day, a man
in a black Mercedes 
will inch up alongside
you and ask:

You working?
Nah.
You wanna work?
Nah.

Jalen Eutsey is a poet, book reviewer, and sportswriter from Miami, Florida. He earned a BA in English from the University of Miami and an MFA in poetry from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His work has been published in Into the Void, Northern Virginia Review, Florida Review Online, Cellpoems, and others. He lives in Baltimore.