Chicago 2020

Each day you wake to the same gray sky,
snow covering the grass like scarves the women wear

at church to make their beauty
more bearable for the angels and the sons of men.

The city sleeps even more than it usually does during winter—
lights dimmed, the empty skyscrapers monuments

to a life we’ve nearly forgotten, now. Time slows.
Stops. You smooth gel into your hair

and pick out fresh clothes to wear for your trip
to the couch, the chair in your office, the kitchen, with its

bowl of citrus, out of season, and back
to your bed again as another day ends.

Tonight you’ll dream of the beach when you were young,
when your coconut lotion invited the sun

rather than repelled it. When you looked
across the lake at the sky and all you could see

was your life’s starting point, out and out
and out across the benevolent waves.

—for Angela

You can listen to a conversation about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast.

Photo by Felicia Montenegro on Unsplash