Terry L. Young

Chicago ice nights
on the Loop

peering into windows
of great steaks & chops

smelling glorious
bread & butter
melting in the snowdrifts

tasting frostbitten salads
of the South Side
& warming in the glow
of a Greyhound’s exhaust

drinking steamy coffee
over gloomy
manhole covers
& sampling
apple pie in
dark alleys
of Cicero.

frozen stars crackling
in December wind
snowflakes covering
the very moon-
i head west