Cabrini Green Housing Project, Chicago Poem by Rasma Haidri

Tonight
in the high-rise windows
Christmas lights
flicker
red, green, white
shapes
almost familiar

wobbly trees
crooked rectangles
like a child's
drawing
of a house.

Lights flash
on then off
each window a door
of stars

appearing
then
disappearing
in the muted sky.

On the street below
youths
stand in clusters
loose
jackets lifting
in chill wind.

Behind the windows
the small ones
look like
all children
look asleep
heavy cheeks
soft
open mouths

lights of Christmas
blinking
over their
dreaming faces

I'm here, I'm gone
I'm here...


(first published in The Book of Hopes and Dreams, Bluechrome,2006)