Corner Gospel

We pray with our shoes on, knees bent over cracked concrete,
hands cupped like tin cups in a church of streetlamps,
siren hymns threading the night, bassline heartbeat underfoot.
Mama said Sundays were for boiled greens and hands that worked,
but life taught us to sing between red lights, in bus doors,
on stoops where laughter is currency and time is a rumor.

Listen: the corner preaches in neon and steam,
hot breath of carts, the clack of heels on subway tiles,
old men spit prophecy over checkers boards,
a boy recites math with a rhyme on his tongue,
counting futures in the fold of his backpack.
We baptize ourselves in the overflow—rainwater, spit, spitfire,
words thrown like grapefruits into the open palms of passing days.

There are prayers written on posters, taped to lampposts,
phone numbers like rosaries—call me, please, call me back.
Even the trash has a story: glass singing like vinyl,
wrappers telling where we’ve been, who we loved and who left.
We dress wounds with duct tape and jazz, tie murals around our necks,
paint our prophets on brick, make saints of barbers and bus drivers,
the hymn improvised between the clipped scissors and the farebox.

You learn to read the city by its scars:
graffiti scripture, children’s chalk confessions,
the way a dog sleeps curled like a comma on the stoop.
We are translators of hard times, fluent in the language of waiting.
Our joy is loud because it must be heard over engines,
our sorrow is quieter because it remembers dignity.
We trade jokes like small coins, pocket change for a smile,
and when the moon is thin, we light our own.

Say the names out loud—grandma’s voice, the corner store’s bell,
the first love who taught you the word forever and then kept the door locked.
We carry our losses like brass knuckles—heavy, shaped by need.
Still, we throw a party for the sunrise: slow-cooked victory,
hip-hop hymnals, a trumpet that keeps insisting on morning.
This is our gospel: keep moving, keep making, keep naming.
The pavement keeps score, but we keep singing.