A city different
Than Carl Sandburg's
Rises to meet the hot sky
as I politely ask pardon
for interposing myself
between two identical-looking men
screaming at each other
in a plate-glass window.
The queens are holding court
in Boys Town.
The poverty claims another victim
in Cabrini Green.
Multifarious mundane cruelties unfold
with corporate efficiency
in the suburbs.
Bienvenidos a Little Village!
where every day
more and more
es el dia de los muertos
Brought by hard-eyed men
Tattooed teardrops fall
from eye to hand,
marking them in their sorrow, these
sons and grandsons
of the first generation
who came here
and discovered:
The skyline markers of Wright
of Mies van der Rohe,
are monuments
to an America
you must crane your necks
and peer northward to see.