The Memory Map

Artist: Anne Hiltner

The map glows on the screen –
black squiggles run across it
cutting through large white blocks
that look like the plastic Legos
I played with on 57th Street
when I was young, growing up
on the South Side of Chicago

There are the tiny dark letters
printed parallel to the long streets
the familiar names like a litany
honed in memory: Woodlawn,
Kenwood, Kimbark, Harper
the perimeter of my world
when I was young in Chicago

Names intersected by numbers
descending from the Loop
forty one, fifty eight, sixty third,
by which each block was counted
making a phalanx on the grid
of my childhood memories
growing up on the South Side

Walking down University Avenue
to school, across the Midway to
visit my father’s office at CTS
rushing to see croci pop up
in the front yard on 59th street
because spring only lasted four days
when I was young on the South Side