Econoline van, midnight
blue, with a ladder
on the roof and a yellow-
ish hardhat or two on the dash,
how many times? have I
seen your kind double
parked on the clenched-
shouldered avenues of Chicago
and thought—maybe unrequited
love and/or hunger, credit card
debt and lumbar pain don't
always matter; sometimes there's a place
at the end of a very
long and slate-
gray basement corridor, a room
that only one person has the keys to.
Forget about the logistics, and
never mind the weather—one waist,
belted-up tight with the right gear
has waded out this far regardless.
There's a hole in my sock
that's been swallowing me for hours
and my lips are so chapped
they're about to crack open—but
one mouth can confidently disclose
what's most likely
wrong with the washer/dryer,
where the conduit goes,
why the locks froze, how all those
hoses are supposed to hook
up to the furnace.
Somewhere—perfectly at home
within the hopeless folds
of any one of these condos—
is one voice that knows
exactly what it's talking about.
