Sea Breeze
2:07PM in the JRC: A woman
from the Pioneer OneCard office FaceTimes
her daughter. It’s (not) always sunny
in Chicago, but today’s the exception.
I stop to fiddle with the strings
on my $12 Thrift Shop Sperries.
Girls lounge
on the metal chairs outside,
their dresses oozing
Hipster Summertime.
Sometimes
I feel
a little too East Coast
in navy blue linen shorts & boat shoes
without an
Ocean
nearby to justify them.
2:15PM by the sundial statue: I stride
past bike racks, remembering
my younger brother telling me
my style is becoming young professional. My hair,
light golden from chlorine,
dances
around me in waves. The tall trees,
gray brown with emerging buds remain
still.
2:17PM I’m listening to a friend's Spotify playlist
with a multitude of variations
on “woo!” An ad
for a book app plays.
A woman
finds herself
transported from her couch
and box of Franzia
to the battle scene.
A dog barks — in it or here,
I’m not sure —
and breaks the image.
Three realities surround me.
2:19PM Purple buds
of flowers in the garden plot
gaze at me,
& me
at them. We are both striving.
2:20PM Two security officers in regal
blue pants & crisp starched white shirts stride
out of the art gallery, out of Bucksbaum,
and into the sun. A boy in plaid lays
on the quad &
gazes at who knows what.