Chicago, Summer 2008

The one night.  Stipe was

singing at the United.

We ate at a diner

then bused down with some

anxious kids.  Who’d never seen

the high rise Moloch

up close.  I recall

telling them about the time

in ’99 when

we stayed at the Palmer House

so I could look for

a job.  A way out

of the far north.  It was cold

10 below but I 

went anyway.  They

remembered the indoor pool.

So I’ve been there.  A

hard place I wouldn’t

want to stay.  Where the music

goes “hey-hey”

and the lights last an

eternity when the last

train, the Empire

Builder pulls out, hot

for Milwaukee then empty

Wisconsin.  I was

there when the hard snow

fell, there when the summer poured

its heat into a singer

and the Chicago

river was dirty, green,  like

a story from Illinois.