CAN’T HEAR NOTHING FOR THAT DAMNED TRAIN

Chaos, all sound and stench, everywhere the delirium

of the ordinary. Mamie Tuttle holds court on a lopsided

wooden porch, clearly an afterthought to her house, yelping

so sideways her gold tooth rattles: Got room in my chair

if anybody need it, scratching scalp, pressing hair, S5,

make you look good this Sunday!—all of her rollicking,

her greasy hands on world hips. For a hot minute, her spiel

drowns out the Temptations moaning for crazy love from

beneath a good girl’s window. Lanky boys in worn-through

sharkskin snag the harmony, croon its bottom while Mamie,

diseased ankles damned tired now, declares O.K. dammit, $4!

Her answer is the cringe roll of cars on last rim, the squealed

lyric of double dutch girls pumping some God outta their legs.

Despite the sugar noise and veiled shit, you would think we’d

want out. The dying engineered green of Garfield Park, a planned

paradise of rust and splinter, is crushed into its corner, wailing

toward the world and Mamie, who is about to nap and could give

a damn: There’s someplace better,

someplace lusher,

someplace past any reach you can reach.

Cover your ears.

Here comes the train.

That’s where it’s going.