Terra Oliveira

Philly Spring Cleanup 

it’s philly spring cleanup day 
block captains organize neighbors
& we shovel out mounds of debris
from the gutters 
sweeping up months-old tempered glass
in a thousand tiny pieces on the sidewalk
plastic bottles 
rusted pipes 
soggy papers 
& cigarette butts 

the city provides us 
with a couple of broken brooms
& mayor kenney provides us 
with a thank you letter 

children run through the streets
which belong to them 
fold their growing hands 
into flower beds 
& bike against oncoming traffic

(really the city is moving against them) 

miss jackson, block captain & resident
of 54th & addison for over 50 years,
would definitely run this city better 

we would all run this city better

Tenant 

do these houses hold the foundation
for setting us free 
or will they kill us 

we do have a right 
i’ve been coughing for years 

the mold in the walls 
the rust in the water 
all the leaking ceilings 
collapsing in the kitchens 

the housing code 
demands 24-72 hours 
for landlords to fix almost everything 

so while the rent is in escrow
& the landlords appeal us in court 

i go back to the fresh air 
i falsely remember 
of my childhood homes 

now foreclosed & sold

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Terra Oliveira is a writer and visual artist from the San Francisco Bay Area, and the founding editor of Recenter Press. Their work has been published in Prolit Magazine, Protean Magazine, Hooligan Magazine, Peace, Land, and Bread Magazine, and others, and they were the Artist-in-Residence at the Schoolhouse at Mutianyu at the Great Wall in March 2017. Their ancestral lineages come from the Azores, the Hawaiian islands, Southern China, and throughout Eurasia. You can find them on Instagram @terraoliveira_.