Are You Still There?

Today. Chicago Theatre.

My kind of town Chicago is not.
There's a grit here--the Buicks with bullet holes,
the frigid whip along Lakeshore Drive.
I visited Fran in the suburbs.
We took a walk around her upper middle class neighborhood.
One single streetlight, no sidewalks.
It was night before I knew it--
it bit, it bit.
This afternoon I crossed the holiday Fields' windows,
and Bennigans'. I can't be sure, but I think those are the windows
I sat on the other side--the inside--of one winter,
with my mom and other adults while our waiter beat the glass
because a homeless man was up against it, pointing
to his mouth.
Felt so low, felt so low.
My mom packed up my potato skins in a to-go box
and said we'd give them to the bum if he was still out there when we left.
He wasn't.
I think about him.
There's a grit here--in the huge blue snowflake of Southwest Ice Arena,
in the combo BR/DD 24/7, in the large black woman with the hot red lipstick and bluetooth on the bus, she says, "I just have to decide the best thing to do and then do it the best I can."