Voicing the city strange
What sound should I sing you? A rustling map, rain on the windshield, roar of wind rushing over lake water until surf sounds on the shore as if ocean lived here.
The moon over Monona
(the lake) bellows tonight.
Do you hear the music of Jenifer Street? A blue porch railing, bicycles tethered at the entrance, an un-mullioned window scanning the lake. Wet wheels on pavement or a thousand leaves ripping in liquid air.
Monroe Street is chiming Bach. Wind over Wingra. A flute.
At Victor’s the coffee is crying
A white crane flies over my red house/
The old oak, limb pointing down, has fallen from the Mound.
Where was wind on Bascom Hill? Look for it at the Chazen.
A violin, a mandolin, and a briny lemon
sang for a pterosaur in a Permian Sea.
They were on their way to Brasserie V.
Can we sing of the Capitol? Not today, my lady.
Well then, where is beauty in this city?
Once on Spaight Street where it intersects with Few, two white-lacquered men sat on a bench, arm over shoulder, ghost men, fleeting, gone to a park in a distant city; a Segal and a gallery that flew away.
But the coterie at Brasserie V?
What did they order? A dark ale,
a Vichyssoise, and two moules frites.
What were they reading?
Poetry. Books colored like rainbows,
words curling like leaves in a storm.
Will there be shelter in this city?
Perhaps, in a house on Jenifer Street as winter comes on, as the lake ices, and the wind is a blade that cuts through a thin pair of blue jeans on the legs of a southern girl. Look for the dream of a revolution, curled in the hope of an equal future, where time lives under a skull.