Chicago in the Wintertime

The midwinter cold
caresses your countenance –
steals your sweet enthalpy,
turns your nose red.

A deep crimson
like the opiate poppies
that covered the street,
before the brutal winter
stripped away their color,

Bent their hues and tones
to match your sharp, thorny bones
and the cold concrete
at the crest of your toes.

And now,
now you smile
at the barren trees,
at the changing seasons and stoplights,
at the strangers
who you are not supposed to meet –
A contented grin
glinting through
perfectly yellowing teeth.

Your features corrode their bounds,
anatomy fighting anatomy,
skin fighting eyes
fighting nose

And the city laughs
as you stretch, contort,
sit up farther than expected –
And you laugh with it.
(You really do have
 a peculiar sense of humor)

You make a habit
of destroying all the gifts you give,
messily wrapping them in atrocious handwriting,
black ink obstructing black ink,
obstructing presence.

And turned on your side,
you watch the City spin,
tarnished by the cold,
ruptured by inharmonic motion.

The skyscrapers refute,
mocking all the commoners below –
the bustle, the jackets, the noise,
the blushing faces and mitted hands.
(You feel offended,
but appreciate the sentiment.)

You hear the sounds too –
the noise,
noise,
noise
howling through the wind,
through the city,
oscillating through the pendulums
of those resonating fibers of air.

And it’s yours.

The dissonance,
the pounds,
the consequence of sounds.

And suddenly,
a petal falls,
and we laugh,
laugh,
laugh
at the absurdity,
at the notion,
at the windy city.