A tale of two Hyde Parks, WYO Armitage Street

 

A tale of two Hyde Parks

Constantin Vukotic

Sitting at my desk during lunch,

Looking at my apartment complex’s snow covered garden,

Almost pure except for the footprints and craters of snowballs 

Left from when we had a snowball fight,

All this reminded me 

Of our snow pile in the parking lot of our Algonquin apartment, 

Where we had lived on the thirteenth floor, 

Where we had crows instead of squirrels, 

cawing incessantly at 6:00 in the morning during winter months

Where we had a smoker as a neighbor, 

who made us have to sleep in a different room of the house with her smell and cussing

Where our grandma came for a visit to Chicago,

some 4 years ago

Where we lived when we first came to Chicago,

Suddenly, my mind jerks back to the present,

To a planet ravaged by a virus.

The carpet beneath me changes to an old wooden floor, 

the parking changes to a garden, and the building shrinks. 

The apartment gets lower,

I'm back to my current apartment.

And I see,

between Indian village and the U-Chicago campus,

there is a tale of two Hyde Parks.