Saturday Poetry: The Circumcision (excerpt)

My brother was circumcised twice.

At first, the days after birth

the midwife held his penis between

thumb and finger.

Tongue protruding, brow knitted she

delivered him his second knife-edged cut.

Our mother, tired after an arduous labor

watched while her firstborn throbbed in anguish.

(He had yet to know shame.)

And for solace she fed him her

generous breast.

Food for her baby,

salve for the pain.

Please Don't Make Me Eat Shit and Tell Me It's Mud Pie

I've been following the Rte. 34 East and West developments. Last night I went to a public meeting about the 34 East development, Downtown Crossing. As a member of the New Haven Urban Design League I agree that there's an opportunity for more innovative, smart planning to make the entire development an asset to the city.  Forgive me if I'm not convinced that the development is an asset to other than the developer, Carter Winstanley, and Yale New Haven Hospital.  (I don't even know if the taxable real estate will remain City property in decades to come.  One of the great selling points about the project is the tax income projections.  What prevents the city from selling the land to one of the 2 major non-profits in town and rendering it non-taxable?)

As a private citizen who lives very near the land involved I'm disheartened by the lack of thorough anthropological and sociological perspective on the project's impact.  I'm not naive: municipal development is expensive and inherently compromising; and, developers are in it for the profit. I got that. But, believe me when I tell you that while the death of the young and promising is tragic, I do not need to hear one more time about how a "medical student" or a "doctor" got killed near the hospital as the impetus for planning safer streets and calming traffic.

What I need to hear is how is the City going to deal with the possibility of a "golden ghetto" being formed between 2 working-class and poor neighborhoods?  How does a Hill resident "cross the divide" and why would they?  For a job in the knowledge-based sector?  For services and merchandise downtown? Will this development be the impetus for affordable middle-class housing nearby or will those who can buy in Hamden, Madison, Guilford as they do now?  How will Downtown Crossing contribute to neighborhood cohesion and all-around economic development for the entire city not just the research and medical sectors?

Until those questions are honestly answered -- and the answers don't have to be what I want to hear, they just have to be the truth -- I'm not buying.