chicago begins when
the train takes us
from the suburbs
or an out of state
dream
past scrawny life that grows
too close to old factory
windows and a barbed
wire fence and a man
on his bike that is saving
gas because his face
is tired,
his basket's empty,
and the cemetary says,
"yes! we have room"
and towards the river
union station looms
and slows over us and
that is where we get
off
into the city that breathes tomorrow
and tomorrow smells like whisky and
tastes like marmalade and it sounds
like the collars that walk
down the mile,
turned up against the wind
and beggars' sympathy,
mainstreaming fear, lost
in their own echo
over cement
and time
and ticket-stub
debates.
the city counts them and
they count us and we count
shades of gray,
asking if good is good
or good enough
because hoping for more
is so much worse than failing
at less.
and there is a prophet
on the street corner
and the penny in his cup
says the only secrets anymore
are the promises we keep
from ourselves
and when nothing
will ever be more
real than that,
let us run from this
city too fast
over rocks with
fingers blinding eyes
until stone makes bone
and blood spits truth.
let us set the smog aflame
to warm the homeless,
feed forgotten babies to starving
empires, and sacrifice god
in the name of religion.
let us call it all a joke
and run.