Prevailing Wind
As if nothing stood in its way
so it swelled over expanses, the wind
today feels from the prairies – cool and intent.
I waft to the hardware store for a bracket
to fix a shelf in place and pass
a notice announcing another high-rise.
Bushes contort themselves around the sidewalk
and I duck where they’re inching lower, organics
bins reek of rot inside their indestructible shells
and speed bumps span from curb to curb
so you can’t get a bicycle tire around them
and I realize if you walk long enough
on a bruised heel, you no longer notice
so you go on.
To the liquor store and vegetable stand.
Under a cat’s cradle of powerlines, souvlaki
grills drift their smoke down alleys
lined with bowling pins of bottles
and leaflet litter scuttles through the lot
that replaced the stale gas station.
Over my head, elevators climb their shafts
and bags of garbage freefall in their chutes
and clouds unspool from the sky, pursued
by a hot air balloon, fully inflated and hollow
and cranes are jousting on the skyline and I
wonder how they all get down when the building is done.
Southbound and there’s a tinkling
of wind chimes and jackhammers in the distance
and I feel nostalgia for some things
as if there’s an elsewhere I’m meant to be -
the pale green tiles of Chester Station
the goose neck lights on the corner bar
and prairie winds – it taps me on the shoulder
but isn’t there when I turn around
has already wrapped itself perfectly over the city
and moved on.
