June

Faces I don’t and never will know,
their hands muddied by their own dirty stories.

I’m tired of the rain.

This year, this year of fruitful tears, has brought water.
So much our streets turn black and our sewers fill with rainbow.

Poisoned rainbow.

There’s still smoke over the river.
On days when I cannot see the treetops of my iron city,
drunkards howl from the alleyways.

An American sin. My home.

Michigan Avenue

At night, the river
talks to me in its stillness.
A black glass window.

I study the lights
across the way. The Bridgehouse,
the empty bike racks.

People don’t speak here.
People whisper promises,
across the water.

Here I sit, quiet,
eavesdropping on the music
of falling in love.

Sarlat

I’m not used to it, the country quiet.
The trees not tall enough, the wind too subtle.

Subtle wind, my pain, the sound of loneliness.
The mirror of a tragedy is in the grass.

The tragedy is in the grass, small dead things
That never knew the music of a gunshot.

The music of a gunshot is loud.
Where I’m from, no two songs are alike.

I like the dirty songs of my city.
Fire escapes and gum stuck to sidewalks.

I stick to the sidewalks. It’s what I know best.
I’m taught to question before I accept.

Before I accept the subtle wind,
I question the country, too quiet.

Julia Multer, a Senior at the Lycée Français de Chicago, has been published in Hot Dish Magazine (Award Winner Short Fiction), elementia magazine, (1st place Short Story), and Voices de la Luna (poetry). She was one of 13 students selected to participate in an intensive course in Creative Writing at Northwestern University under the professorship of poet Richie Hofmann.