Chicago

Poem © 2013 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved

 I bear your

longitude

latitude

on the grid of my psyche:

endless Lake

ice cold winters

sultry summers

every childhood impression

on the South Side

of my chakras

when I was growing up,

a dangerous neighborhood.

The Windy City

bore gangsters

good schools

passion-worthy sports teams

a melting pot

bubbling to a boil.

You also bore me

but were never boring.

Still I ran

to a smaller city

then to California

as far as I could get
and still retain

country of citizenship.

I ran from the past:

abandonments

joy and pain intermingled

always ready to drown me

on the Lake of Happiness and Grief.

But when I came back

on Social Security

a homesickness

set in

a cancer

in the pit of my stomach

a gnawing loss

sharp as any I’d ever known

scene of the crime

St. Bernard’s Hospital

cut off from mother

family of origin

since then reconnected

now one more reunion

I had to embrace

lost birthplace

found again

dis-ease cured
home

at last.

~.~.~

Photo Credit: An oil painting of the Chicago skyline my husband purchased circa 1971 by artist J. Scheuber.

Note: Posted in celebration of the 27th anniversary of finding my birth mother  on April 14, 1986.

Don't forget to check out Astro-Poetry month during April on The Radical Virgo! Learn about all the poetry that's going on in the sky.