Return to Backward River
the colors of the paint
In Hyde Park I scored from a Little Free Library an issue of Poetry Magazine from February 2020. Good to be where reading on the sidewalk is neither abnormal nor dangerous. A driver stopped for me at a crosswalk I didn't even know was there.
There are Obamas here, and Farrakhans, and radiation from the Manhattan Project, and the original Heisman Trophy behind glass down the street. Rumors that Hugh Hefner had a few Bunnies shacked up in this house back in the day. Rumors we choose to believe.
What's the U of C mascot, I ask my friend. Cormorants. Callicoes. Curmudgeonly Gentlemen. He gives me the answer and I forget immediately but it was probably a color or a bird. As a UIC alum I only root for Flames. No one knows that one either.