POEM BY MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

I LONG
 
I long for the birds.
their wings scintillating in dawn’s gold,
the white-crowned sparrows.
The romance of mourning doves preening.
Just give me wings in old age—
feathers dusted with hope
& memories are now gone.
I wish I could learn to fly.
wearing my long johns swirling
above this city, scrambling ashen sprawl.
The willow trees, their slender branches weeping,
bushes once tangled with songs—
chainsaws gnawed them down.
Just the charged electric drone
of chainsaws remains,
a sharp reverberation of all that’s gone.
Decision of condo board members
dismantle my aesthetics.
They trample on my dreams.
They respond with higher HOA fees.
Stuck here alone with the aging, 55 years & up.
I face my reflection in the mirror.
No driveway out.
I see death prowling at the edge of my dreams.
shadows swelling in the corner edges of the night.
Like a homeless person in Chicago
that Lower Wacker Drive, the triangle
of death.