OBSCURA

The roving 

Lake Michigan 

ghosts

of lupine fog—

climbing 

up and

garishly

chewing—the tops

off West 

Loop parking 

garage towers—

make the whole

landscape 

of work 

look—not only

ugly—but 

darkly

self-

conscious about it—

its vertical walls,

like slender

shoulders 

under obliterated 

faces,

tensed

and raised, 

as if vague-

ly wincing

away in their loam

coats of beige-

gray, with the 

huge stress 

of being 

so durably

and deliberately 

constructed—

but then left

to stand there

so unprotected—

and each

turning vague 

with the noxious 

pollution 

of mercurial

weather's dumb 

disinclinations, while still

remaining 

so fixedly—

manmade.