Many thanks to Mass Poetry for featuring Rita Banerjee’s poem, “Chicago Ode,” in their Poem of the Moment section. Mass Poetry supports poets and poetry in Massachusetts. Mass Poetry helps ro broaden the audience of poetry readers, brings poetry to readers of all ages and transform people’s lives through inspiring verse. A copy of the poem is included below, and you can read the full poem on Mass Poetry here.
You came quiet on
cat feet with
disregard
for minor names
Like architecture,
you remained
aortal and stung—
Colors dropped
off grids and arcs
bending like yellow,
red and unglued blue
You moved like
a river under
Boul Mich elevated
trains
undulated space,
kept sails and lovers
lit on harbor.
like bodies lit
on grass, you stood
unlike bronze
unlike concrete, too
contained in no
form, no limb
that would move
like fever
your eyes grew
catlike, calling to
strange bodies,
locking lakes in land,
you asked time to
sneeze, hiccup, to not
speak at all—
asked to linger no
longer or to
stay longer like
cracklers at night,
the firework’s parched
breath & Ferris wheel
lights that held
like ships & whistles
a cradle
without thread.
* Read the poem on Mass Poetry here.
Rita Banerjee 