The Art of Chicago

by Kara Machowski

I missed the sun
I grew in places
I never knew I owned
my skin paled with my eyes
my hair grew dark
I wondered what I looked like when I used to be golden
I asked for this, I thought
to return to the place I was born
I wanted to walk the grounds that my father walked
to drink coffee in the Artist’s Café that he frequented
the man I never knew

I gaped at the same Monet’s and Manet’s
I studied the same stippled pastels
of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon
past through the bronzed lions
I thought it would make me understand him
I thought I would run into him one gray day

Deep-river blue eyes
that appeared to hold the sadness of the world
drooping large and low
hair black
breath smelt of bad choices
he was like a Pablo painting
his life was Picasso’s Blue Phase
with a lonely guitar
he taught me about true sorrow
the understanding of loss
the misunderstanding of feeling lost and alone
in a city we once called our home