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
One Response
This deserves hundreds of celebrating replies. The poem is immediate and eternal. Rose’s personal response welcomed all of us and personally affirmed this 81year old. The understanding of unrhymed couplets revealed a sincere kindness. The freshness never drew attention to itself. The reading was m an oboe. Thank you both ever so much.