Answer songs sell well

From her cave, high in

the Michigan Avenue cliff,

Wendi plots the morning

like a military campaign

against many enemies, 

visions of the inside of 

the flat, brown stone.

The trumpet shall sound.

On the way up, Wendi

sang country chants with

GirlJane at the Immigrant

Aid concert where the

Obama t-shirt was stabbed

by the Kansas flag guy.

All dead shall rise.

Her answer songs sell

well, but Wendi is without

answers. There was this

man, then that man. Now,

her girlfriends, until time

to go home. Daughter and

son, distant, except when

social media-ed. A single 

brick on the sidewalk along 

Diversey and one at Mildred.

All changed, stingless.

Wendi’s heart skips. Her

skin is a water weight, a

liquid straitjacket. Child

of the Century opens the

book for her but cannot

make her read.

Who against?

Wendi sits in the back pew

at the funeral, as if engaging

with the rest of her life, ring

and all, in the thick summer

air under the plainsong ceiling.