His skyscrapers watch the city; beams
of white resteel prismatic spires and dust
Chicago’s shoreline. Scabs of ice encrust
Backyards and stop signs. He repaints the Bean
in watercolor pearl, its top half preened
in tufted ice, the lower half untouched
by snowflakes. In its curve I melt, face slushed
in thawing metal. My hands and frost convene
in fingerprinted glass. In this careened quotation,
I think I catch him, etching plans of cubits
and columns, plotting where the snow should bowl
through Navy Pier. He draws this transformation
in blueprints, calculates the splay of lucid
crystals. Uncolored flecks roll out in scrolls.
of white resteel prismatic spires and dust
Chicago’s shoreline. Scabs of ice encrust
Backyards and stop signs. He repaints the Bean
in watercolor pearl, its top half preened
in tufted ice, the lower half untouched
by snowflakes. In its curve I melt, face slushed
in thawing metal. My hands and frost convene
in fingerprinted glass. In this careened quotation,
I think I catch him, etching plans of cubits
and columns, plotting where the snow should bowl
through Navy Pier. He draws this transformation
in blueprints, calculates the splay of lucid
crystals. Uncolored flecks roll out in scrolls.
Taylor Byas is a Black poet and essayist. She currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is a second year PhD student and Albert C. Yates Scholar at the University of Cincinnati studying poetry. She is also the Poetry Editor for FlyPaper Lit and an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus. She has received four Pushcart and six Best of the Net nominations, and is the 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway Contest. She also really loves hugs and hyping others on social media.
perhappened mag 2020 best of the net nominee for carnival.