Chicago Mothman (2024)

Backyard barbecue babes

ephemeral like cicadas,

air thick and dank with smoke.

Chicago people don’t scare easy

yet they tread the streets in fear

for years, altogether

an unsocial species.

Don’t want anyone labeling their

children. Don’t want to be

ridiculed for profoundest

moments, those

associated with near-

paranormal

consensuses.

Lake Michigan hauntings

murders of the Midwest

cemeteries of O’Hare:

they do not compare.

But to ask a real

Neighborhood Man

would yield, like the

long stretch of a

black dogleg,

an answer to

perplex and stare

directly at you.

What are you?

What do you want

from me?