Advice
Don’t be stupid
he said to her
and I saw the cannonball
leave him and hit her
splintering her sternum and entering the cavern
where she stored them all
like a clown car full of pain
that never unloaded to show off
how much it could carry.
I wanted to tell her
that she didn’t have to keep it
that she could let it pass through
and exit out her back
leaving a circular blast hole of blown away skin
and that it wouldn’t even be a ball
anymore when it flew out
but four and twenty blackbirds escaping,
leaving her weightless.
Instead, I filled her coffee even though she had not asked.
Chicago
Let’s go to Chicago
and stay in a hotel
where we can see the lake from our room,
and do nothing except
walk up Michigan and back down
Wabash
picking out people to practice on.
There will be a business student from Columbia
turning up her collar in the wind
and a fast-moving doctor biking home from Rush.
He’ll have a wife at home
but will come back here later
after the kids are in bed
to that weird dirty
space that the Tribune forced Macy’s to clean up
in the tunnel under the street
to meet his former nurse
who quit three months ago to get her master’s degree
but instead watches cooking shows all day
and lives off her dead mother’s money
wishing she were in Italy
Madagascar
Mexico City
anywhere but Chicago
where everyone can see her.
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