Lament for My City

This is the city which is not Paris.
There are junkies in the park, but they don’t speak French.
And when the waiters are rude, we don’t smile indulgently and say, “How Gallic!”
We call the manager because, after all, we are consumers and they have no business giving us attitude.
That tenebrous mist stealing over the rooftops? A pollution index measures it.
Strolls along the bank of the river, punctuated by amorous embraces, are ill-advised.
The homeless woman who tried that last week was found with two stab wounds to the throat.

Worthington is our Montmartre, our Pigalle. A beleaguered council struggles to control the spread of strip joints taking over.
The little frame shop? Gone.
The luncheonette? That’s gone as well.
The Christian Science Reading Room? Long anachronism, finally a memory.

O city of the generic name, you are my city.
I cry for you.
Every other Springfield in every other state is named for you, my home.
And all across this lovely, lovely country, parks and rooftops, rivers, streets and neighborhoods so like your own
Bleed and burn,
Bleed and burn.