Three Poems

by Benjamin Goluboff

Chicago Micromobility

Pair of Lance-alikes, clipped-in,

pass the guy on the GETIR bike

who is passing the kid

on the acoustic scooter

smoking the analog cigarette.

The Lance-alikes’ jerseys

bear the names

of an investment banking house

and a software acquisition firm.

Guy on the GETIR bike

wears the colors of the brand.

Scooter kid’s bumping Kendrick.

Next, past the Taco Bell,

comes an inked young woman on blades.

She wears a muscle-T

that says UNWELL.

In Her Mind My Wife

is a young Rupaul

writing BOWIE

in red marker

across the face

of the Marlboro Man.

MYCITY 

all caps all one word

you see it looking north 

from the east end 

of the 18th St. bridge 

where it crosses

the river at Ping Tom Park. 

The classic commodified

Chicago skyline rises

out of the river 

from this viewpoint

looking like an artist’s 

rendering of itself.

MYCITY occupies 

a fence or a shed

in the middle

left foreground 

of the skyline

as if it were 

the caption

to the picture. 

BIO: Benjamin Goluboff is the author of Ho Chi Minh: A Speculative Life in Verse and Biking Englewood: An Essay on the White Gaze, both from Urban Farmhouse Press. Goluboff teaches at Lake Forest College. Some of his work can be read here: https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/faculty/goluboff/