Illinois Can Have Charm
there’s an elegiac beauty, a glimmering stillness to #Rockford streets lit at this hour by neon glinting on brushed-glass january pavement.
A smallness written on street signs,
A silence spelled out on seventh street drugs,
Some coke here, some dope there,
But yet behind it a music ripples —
Some Sinnissippi, a twist of the Coronado.
I will walk along the Rock River
And I will follow the path to Loves Park,
And I will sit on a bench,
And I will drink in the grass,
And I will read my Pynchon,
And yes, I will celebrate all that is life.