Urbs in Horto – City in a Garden
Where I journey through alleys that run like rivers
of piss & trash & cigarette tar
Where I listen to police & ambulance sirens
reverberate through the city’s perfect grid system
& to a woman declare she is trans & that she
will skin the man that beat her
Where I watch the poor jab needles into their ankles
from tents on Lower Wacker Drive
Where I learn the wind doesn't reference nature
but the nature of politicians
& the color of your skin determines life expectancy
Where the musk of flesh is finely pressed
into CTA buses & ‘L’ trains
Where I wheel a man with no working feet
down 3 blocks on State Street
Where the City in a Garden that once burned
still does today.
Long Night in Chinatown
Profusely screaming . . .
why
I do not claim to know
I have arrived
at the corner of Cermak
when the man in distress
demands
What are you looking at!
What are you looking at!
demands
the man in distress
at the corner of Cermak
I have arrived
I do not claim to know
why
profusely screaming . . .
Cricket Hill
On this man-made hill, I am what is
hardly the gladdest thing
under the weakening sun.
I do not touch the more than
hundreds of small flowers
nor do I pick one. I look to the towers
& clouds, longing to see
past the horizon. And
when the light finally recedes
there, & the lights of the city
begin to show, I will start down,
to somewhere I call home . . .
Dom Blanco is a Cuban-American writer originally from Miami, FL, now based in Chicago, IL. He holds an MFA from Randolph College.