Euclid Avenue
errol miller
Northern summer
with a screeching lady in an overcoat, she
is the subject of our agitation: Sasha and I,
we didn’t drive, we walked up and down
Euclid Avenue with rain on our wrists, we rode
a crazy day to the middle of the afternoon.
Then we had a beer. And I fell in love with lier
all over again, on the downhill side of 40
she’s precious now, and somewhat prim and proper,
she hurts ’till it bleeds, and then we cross
over to Lakeshore Drive to bathe our souls
in splendid waters: The Lady of the Lake
is always with us, pouting, pouting, pouting.
Headlines blare the day away. Lazy George
and the Republicans, don’t know s--t, don’t
do s--t, never have and never will until
they get a Texas-size boot up their
prima-donna asses. So we slightly grinned
through the sidewalk sales, being semi-Southern,
voting for Bill, we have a perfect right to
our own feelings, at this deep point in humanity
ve should do good to one another, never
run wild with words, even on the steps
of the Art Institute downtown. Now
we are in “survival mode,” going 60 inside,
going over what’s right and wrong. Our
kids row on towards the sea, they
know everything, of course, renting rooms
for the future in a little cottage in Atlantis.
And we politely discuss the hereafter, not
the cosmic kind, but just about tomorrow,
how the mundane routine of daily life
is very satisfactory at timess: we never make
much a fuss about supper or loving, we listen to
the Southside dogs bark and whine and then
we’re off to childlike dreams: innocence,
lost in the silvery night, a little sister finds
her niche, it’s hard to say everything she said,
gross and complex and intended to burden
us down with problems not our own.
We retreat to a Great Room and yawn. “Am
I a bad man?” asked John Berryman.
We’ve only been in Chicago a short time but we’ve
been here much too long: sirens, on the Avenue,
announcing change, from mudpies to
the half-lies of the moment, this
broad-shouldered odyssey soon will end.
By now we are taking notes, writing it out,
hundreds of miles from home with primarily copies
of other poets’ works, the agressive tease
is working, our bodies vainly tumble into bed.
We cannot exorcize the little sister, but,
if she repents, we may not respond.
This isn’t new. Nobody’s gone from the circle.
It’s just the process of madness dancing
around in a she-wolf head, add some booze
and lightning after (]inner at Berghoffs
and you have a dandy physical event.
“By God,” I thought, “she reminds
me of my second wife.” Sasha and I lay
cold and stammering in July, the easy part.
Some things instinctively hurt,-especially family
and friends intolerable in circumstances
that cannot be changed, but this may
only be experience sent from Heaven to direct
the weary travelers home. At Oak Park Arms
there is deep danger, too, squalor and illness
and cutouts of Auntie Jo near the end. They’ll
save the ivory skulls for the Art Institute, they’ll
order fewer prepaid meals, putting the summer
away in safe-deposit boxes, burying them
in barren ground, so, you see, we’ll
lose the same race as we go muttering about
injustice: who is on our side, count the votes,
remember, we’re leaving Wednesday morning
and we swear we’ll never come again.
