Where safety won't rent

 The narrow street where
every streethouse had overcrowded gardens
obscuring the homes behind them
Decorated wooden gates

glistening white paint
capturing the humid southern hemisphere january
making them look new and plastic like
one would peak over the gates

Down long driveways overlayed with shrubs
the shade of taller trees colonizing the smooth concrete below with moss
Nights were thick with fear as streets had lost their safety
even the lamps half ensconced in higher undergrowth

only lit up small patches of sidewalk
As if to invite calamity 
what wondrous beauty during the day
yet sinister tight dread at nightfall