I can’t say we’re the same but I too have lost large parts of me to greener pastures
Your dark bricks turn to dust and paint the snow a red maroon
“The stories they’d tell”
Says everyone sad to see them crumble but not sad enough to do anything about it
“Someone should do something”
Someone, but not they
Milwaukee I too am a lot like you, if you only knew
How far I slid sickly over the Kinnickinnic oil slicks
Past fallen trees and draining pipes
Until being caught by a shopping cart
Left on the muddy banks by some poor poor impoverished soul
Who also didn’t really care enough to return it to the Pick & Save
From which it was taken
I’ve sure seen better days and I too have come a long way
Like I got on to Fond Du Lac Avenue and kept walking
Until I reached
Well...
Fond Du Lac
Like I ascended Kilbourn Park with a pick-axe
Defeated the yeti on top and shoved your blue flag
Through his heart, cracking it open like a Pabst or Schlitz can
and dropped a quarter in a homeless guy’s jar
And he told me I was just like you
I can too burn bright like the foundries in the valley
Or roar like railcars and rattle the south side
Or be courageous like the captain
Sailing to Muskegon
Over choppy freshwater treachery
I can shutter in peace like your factories when I fall asleep
And never wake back up
I can drive all my loved ones away
Just like you have
For the past five decades
I’m exactly like you
Because I too
Wait for a sunnier day

My heartbeat pulses
like the north star
in my lower lip: I am, I am, I am.

My hair is humid; it curls like
smoke.

I toss Petoskey stones back
to Lake Michigan
where they’ll be safe from
souvenir shops,

at least until they
land on shore again.

I suppose dreams are like that,

washing up again and again
on our eyes shoreline.

Lake Michigan sand rests within my bones;
it slows the timing of my heart
and scratches the vowels
budding on my wet tongue.

I imagine waiting for you
on a bench of ghosts
with coffee and binoculars,
observing the rush of continuous
flutter as seagulls settle
and then unsettle, as indecisive
as the mottled lake.

The afternoon light is brisk,
pulls my breath like a buoy chain--
     my heart sounds like it's underwater,
     its beats drive the tide
     that draws you, like an undertow, to me.

I sit in a forest, with my back against a large oak,
and listen. Among rustling leaves and
whining cicadas I hear something else.
Something larger.

It's moving through the forest on jointed legs,
snapping the branches of century old trees.
An insect the size of a castle. It lets out a cry.
Sounds like a thousand year old whale's
death rattle. The cicadas stop whining and I
shudder.

It's heading to the lake to breed,
or to die. Their kind begins and ends in water.
Very morbid creatures, they are.

I can feel its steps shake the earth as it comes
closer and then I see it. Ten long, jointed legs
support the bulk of the thing. It towers over me,
silver. Its shell is a knight's armour and its red
eyes are the devil's. I stand up in awe of the
colossal bug as it lumbers past me, blocking the sun
and casting me in shadow for a while.

I light a cigarette and listen to it move through the forest.
Eventually, I can't hear it anymore and the cicadas
start to whine again.

The walls change from blue to green
And fade away with the morning sun
Every night they return
And so does she
The one who ruined it all
The creeping woman from the yellow wallpaper
She loves to bathe in salty water
Puddles of tears and sobbing oceans
These walls remind me of a time when the morning sun distant
Like my memories of you

My eyelids shutter-click
your face in frames per
second:    your lips quiver
as you stare at me.

Did I mention that I am ****?

The clock you bought
from the gypsies scratches
at the bedroom air.

When you kiss
me and I kiss back,
I am not here--

my skin is, my heat,

I've left everything
here in this moment
for you--
            even my pulse
I once held so tight,
            like the lake clings
            to the moon.

you are the reason I'm okay with
this god forsaken state.
if I left, I would leave you behind.
I cursed this town before your name was a part of my world.
you make it okay to stay.
you are my Chicago.
some love the skyscrapers
and the sunsets on the beach
or the streets that curve and illuminate the whole town.
that is their chicago.
but you are mine.
your eyes and smile are the skyscrapers in my heart
and your laugh is engulfing
like the lake.
you'll be my Chicago--
the one I will be homesick for because when I think of home,
I think of you.

up the hill I go
on and on
up and up
I can't see the top

but that's not important
the journey is everything

by the campfire
alone in the night
with starry blanket
draped around me

looking down upon  the lake
I'm looking into the dreams
and the sadness
and the feelings

in the cold I shiver
in sadness , emptiness
I shake
Hush ! Lay down , go to sleep

Diamond encrusted
sky over a moon lit lake
two lovers kissing