Chicago Poem

Imagine a snowy street, broad as the grandest esplanades
of Europe, flanked by two low rows of dowdy brick,
powdered white, eyeing each other across the drifted snow
like Foster Grant contessas wrecked in some arctic sidewalk café.
Notice how everything is white, white, the steam-leached
fluorescence of the white enamel diner, one lit
window white. Inside, one taker bellies the white
Formica, eyes pinched on his turkey white, side of milk,
until the glacial waitress comes, trims the crusts.

Relieved, he hefts one white right triangle,
swoops, parabolizes the hypotenuse, chews.
As he follows with a sip of milk, a snowblind
cockroach staggers out from behind the napkin rack,
caroms off the pastry sconce, careens across the counter
toward his plate, black as a buffalo, big as truth,
feelers desperate to puzzle out the white, alien void.
Without the slightest flicker of hesitation the man sets
his milk down on the roach, bites a corner off his sandwich.