Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Every evening,
up in my room,
I try to finish a poem
but Chicago is hot
and it’s better outside,
strolling along the Lake
or driving anywhere
with the windows down.

You sound good,
if undecided about things.
My life gets better
no matter how hard I try
to make it worse.
No medicine
for a month now;

no poems, either.
I can’t recall my last
spontaneous erection.
I’d blame it all on the heat
but you’d know better.

Summer in Chicago
makes people accessible
and I’ve become chatty
in these later years.
I find that small talk

with people oiled
and stretched like tarps
on Pratt Avenue Beach
trumps any summer attempt
at revising a poem winter
revisions never made right.

We’ll see if my new affair
with society lasts.
How long will I
continue to meet strangers
who introduce me
to myself?


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.