Her majesty the Windy City looms

above the slabs of black and worn out brooms,

whose bristles brush over the bric a brac

strewn carelessly across the pavement’s cracks.

The men who guide them tip their caps at you,

A sly request to join their lonesome crew.

Your eyes avoid the beseeching glances,

focused instead on the dust that dances.

It skips and bounds across the trodden streets,

then rests in layers on the worn concrete.

The hazy dusk suspended overhead

is interrupted by the spikes of lead,

thorns of the Sears that ensnare the soft clouds

and draw in from the streets all of the crowds.

The men with the brooms clean up their remains

as droplets of rain start to drip down drains.

Clangs of noise as they hit the pipes below,

an infernal maze where mold starts to grow.

Colors not seen by the old street sweepers,

who only greet the urban world’s reaper.