Curbside Snow

Slush-wet and gray sky
Masking tape histories written upon the wall
Left behind.

The dirty snow of Chicago

Under the El, shoveled away from the Edens.
It has all followed me here.
Followed me on the sleek airliner that I boarded
To rise up out of all the muck and memory.

I come and I pile all of this dirty snow in front of these new doors
These new little nametags
Virgin white charcoal covered, the process slow,
Slow, slow.

Let it all melt into the ground and sink away into the gutters,
The toilets, swim through sewers, incessant mutters
Beget to the gam
Flush, flow.

I’ll never question honesty
But when that same sleek airliner has to squish slide
Through this dirty snow
I’ll be going home, home, home,
And all back into the tape and writing and highway
Curbside snow
Of so many hot, copulating summers frozen over
Dampened down by sludge-covered muck streets
Incandescent lights and fleeing retreats
Back to Chicago, go, go, go.

To be sorted through
sifted and unsoiled
melted away into Spring.