2205



80 degrees
on a sunday
finished w/work
I wander, aim-

less, it would seem
into some bar
near Halsted &
Diversey at

6 p.m. &
order Stoli
over ice w/
lemon & Liz

the bartender
introduces
herself & plays
Joni Mitchell

on the jukebox
& then The Cure’s
Pictures of You
song takes me back

to age 18
but who wants to
be so awkward
then, let alone

at 33.
Nobody here
but 3 other
women, Sox fans

up N. for the
crosstown classic
chatting sex &
calling me out

for having walked
into such talk
a friendly crowd
for Lincoln Pk.

I hate the Cubs
or at least can’t
stand those vapid
Wrigleyville Chads

& Tiffanys
hot to adopt
the Cubs, their Chads
teat-jobs & all

& T. Heldt called
earlier, wants
to get some beers,
find a reading,

maybe. Liz is
pretty, dirt-blonde
bangs & exposed
unpierced navel

wider hips &
tight, all-black clothes
but the red fake
pearls on her neck

are a spurting
aorta, hot
cinnamon drops
or grenadine

bleed into some
conversation
about college
or student loans

or some other
small talk like that.
Others have come
to the bar now

. & I’m writing
& they’re talking
& I’m finished
drinking Stoli,

counting all of
the syllables
like some workshop
reject & the

setting sun paints
storefront across
St. platinum
like pictures of

Algiers in grade
school history
textbooks or some
‘60s epic

from Hollywood.
& the moon in
Scorpio for
another day.

The juke is good
for Lincoln Pk.
The syllables
will do, I guess

the first time I saw lightning strike I saw it at sea (or something like that)

Can't stop hearing the Cure's "Hot, Hot, Hot" in my head. Spent the earlier hours today somewhere near Kankakee & it was all green cornstalks and beanfields, or fields of whatever grows there. I'd forgotten how narrow those midwest county roads can be. Thinking about horrific photos my grandfather took in London after the Nazi bombs he never showed us & that I discovered a couple yrs. back after my grandmother died.

a pome?



2206


sun-reflected mirror on blue
municipal garbage truck refracts
is a strobe gives
fits thru
leaves high noon. Still slow from last night’s

sleeplessness I board a 66 for my one o’clock --
dusty, wood-planked construction
site foreground to the Batman-black
Hancock. A lazy Wed.
The movie ppl.

commandeered E. Delaware
Ave. The tourists in tucked
-in shirts & pleated shorts point
fingers, crane planetarium-stretched necks & block
pedestrian traffic

on The Mile
as always & it’s
hot not humid as I write
chord charts for tonight’s audition.
Down to my last $50 until July

-- 9 days away. I leave
the bus at Larrabee. New
condos cast cool shadows above
Sra. M. Cabrini’s remaining
projects & I think

I must be
some kind of communist, recalling
P.R. in my youth
its moneyed its
have-nots. The good guys

in the movies couldn’t touch
Carmencita Rodriguez, my cousins’
abuelita leafleted island
intersections in the ‘70s
taught me Spanish

& Catholic Voodoo
under far
more oppressive suns
who died this week
2 yrs. ago

from cancer
as always it may
be the tightness of my wallet
makes me think
this way. I can’t remember

anything but
this lusty hunger for
anything else. I could
have been wealthy, well
-heeled

& boring
& today E. told me
she thinks G.'s a whore
(her words) for not holding the elevator
& last night’s full

moon must linger
like a buzz
the tourists the
manifest destinies
of the movie ppl.

I want cold beer, a dog
a starlet of my own
& hungry & alone
is there no place
like home.