Minneapolis

Minne from the Dakota water, polis the Greek city. Metro laced with dirty slush, faces tight under scarves and hats and hoods against a cutting wind. Blocks torn up and blocks torn down in perpetual construction, reconstruction, deconstruction. Some are pushed to cheaper rents, some pulled to hotter spots, white flight and black flight and brown and yellow and red flight. But you are home. In dreams some see your true name. They crawl under wreckage, deserted projects and churches and communes. Graffiti signals the low way below the highways: here is where the pure river flows. Wide channel, slow and clear, here your people wade. A baby floats with eyes open. A pair of buffalo enter to drink, a covered wagon pulls to the edge, old ones fill a jug. A round mother, her thin lover, children whoop echoes off the bridges above. Lost vets push into the current, the dirt that had assailed them carried away. A row of paralytics swim, swift and free. High-rise foundations and ghetto beams rise all around us, but light filters through and we swim here in minne the temperature of love.