The border guard smiles
as you explain the cookies
he doesn't need
to know about- but maybe
you want to tell him
rehearsed stories
make something up,
they call them girl guides
in Canada.

By Indiana
you lose track
no states or cities
just religious radio
fireworks stands
the largest
adult toy
warehouse
in the midwest
and you know
it's America.

The road was closed
in Canada, you remember
the line you wrote
about the prettiest girl
and the ugliest building
living in the same city
it makes you like the city
more.

The Andy Warhol sign
obscured by the sun;
you'll never know
what Warhol was doing
with Chicago.

There's a difference
in the toll booths there,
no one smiles
or hears you say
"Thank You"
for the ten cents
for the two quarters
but in the hotel room
you hear them
having sex
or maybe
it's the pipes
flushed an hour ago
the groan of showers
through pipes
a low moan
a high sigh
either way
you're alone
and you want
very much
not to be
in Chicago.

In the traffic jam
in Canada
the mayor of Toronto
talks about thought crime
here's one:

The woman in back of me
is from New York
I can see it
in her liscence plate,
You want to tell her
you've got girl scout cookies.
In Chicago, you've got
a headache
while they fuck.

You watch the news
a boy on a bike
hit with a Porsche
that kept on driving.
Sex or the pipes?
Chicago, Chicago
even Ira Glass
has left me
in exchange
for 72 hours
of Pledge drives.

I'm racing
to this city
and it was like
the race
I took
to you
when you
was the warm body
at the end of it,
as if my arrival
meant a kiss
and a back rub
hips, legs, hands.

But the pipe sex
makes it all
into prostitution
now, strip clubs
flashing neon lights
the advertisement
for subscription
pornography
on the hotel's tv
with no one here.

It dawns on me:
perhaps the occupants
of room 320
are sobbing
uncontrollably.

It dawns on me
that after this long
I might forget
how not to be
alone.


-e.



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