This city sings on –
when hymns fade cicadas screech from shadowed nooks
flames crackle in attic corners and trains grumble from exalted tracks
– disparate tunes convene the choir,
through crunch of roof beams, fires hum and sparks jolt from electric rails
reach crescendo at the vaulted ridge as an El ferries bodies to the skyline’s heart
to call the attention of some higher ear.
unfurl the smoke that swallows street as elsewhere crews stake fresh steel into earth
congregations pull open their windows to set sights on sites of promise.
The chorus draws notes from deep in its guts
fire skins the house Thomas Dorsey built cicadas shed antique bodies
while flames sing his singed sheet music before abandoning a hallowed shell.
Every time this city burns,
it rises a bit more muted.
Michael Welch is a writer from Chicago. He was a finalist for the 2019 Breakout 8 Writers Prize, the winner of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies' Florence Kahn Memorial Award, and the author of the chapbook, 'But Sometimes I Remember.' His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Kenyon Review Online, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. He received a Master's degree in fiction from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and serves as a daily editor for the Chicago Review of Books. Find him at www.michaelbwelch.com and @MBWwelch.