Bats in Bridgeport
by Frank G. Karioris, Regular Contributor
Softpaws on sofas in basement brick buildings,
this evening snow keeps down wet onto the ground
while drinks are made to bring us to life together.
Bulbs blinking along Halsted, old taco restaurants
& a CVS with the requisite Dunkin’ keeping
the street afloat & all of us fed to some degree.
Each street still has its own feel, & the neighborhood
is well known for having such in-group that they’ve
retained their own accent, & approach for others.
Today – which seems more & more like a yesterday not
gone years ago – instead of quietude & buses full
there were groups of men wrapped in whiteness
aerating the streets of life & remains & color, for their
bats are nothing more than vestigialness coming
unburied from silt of river bottoms now dredged,
from where slaughterhouses used to coexist with
smelting factories, all of which choked the air of
breathe to replace it with choking & suffocation.
Those snowy moments are long gone, divorced
the children split time between houses, they
have left the neighborhood, welcomes departed.
