Lost in Chicago

Parking now is privatized,
on-street prices very high,
all hotels have also raised
valet costs in the same way:
everybody wants to make
as much money as they can
before bankruptcy will take
everybody down just like
Detroit.

Mile Magnificent is still
mostly white except for men
parking cars or begging on
sidewalk sides. Inside, women
wear their diamonds on pale hands–
colored hands wear vinyl, fill
buckets, pails, trash bags, and cans:
garbage left behind by all
the rich.

Foreigners drive taxis, make
more here than at home. Send back
salaries and tips to help
families survive. I stop,
lost on lower Wacker Drive,
lower Michigan, no help
here from GPS, “Now drive
east 500 feet and stop.”
(I’d be in the lake…)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 9, 2013

P.S. On Tuesday, October 1 Steve will bring his poetry to Tuesday Dialogues at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska. Free and open to the public.