I pause near bottom porch steps,

loiter apartment stoops,



hope no one notices me.

I stuff glasses in my bookbag,



run down alleys, make wide berths

around certain corners to avoid

their black leather-clad,

never crossing Halsted Street

into strange, unfamiliar neighborhoods

because I know the boundaries of my world.

As I step around the black depths

of rain-slick potholes, I cry,

“How deep do they go?”

My ancestors answer,

Down with your grandfathers,

all the way to Sicily.

Frank C. Modica is a cancer survivor and retired special education teacher. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Plum Tree Tavern and Front Porch Review. Frank’s first chapbook, “What We Harvest,” published this past fall by Kelsay Books, was a finalist for an Eric Hoffer book award.