Thursday, July 18, 2013

Poem for Detroit

If you know me at all, you know how much I love my hometown of Detroit. Today the city filed for bankruptcy. I wasn't on-line all day, I saw the news when I got home. It wasn't a huge surprise, but it was a heartbreaking one.

For dVerse Poets Pub (It's been a while, guys!!) Using "Oh the places we live!" Even though I don't live in the D anymore & "The Poet's Toolbox"!!

My Detroit

I didn’t expect the news of Detroit today to get to me so much,
But I know why it did:
Detroit is my home.

Hot summer nights spent in Tiger’s Stadium.
Family outings to Ford Field.
My cousins babysitting my brother (the only boy) & I
at our Grandmother’s.
Sitting around multiple tables at my aunt & uncle’s house
because there were too many of us to fit at a single table.
Watching the Red Wings
skate to victory two years in a row
in my aunt and uncle’s living room.
Huge, Polish Catholic, family reunions on the lake.
Sleeping on the floor in tiny cabins
without air conditioning.
Meeting my cousin’s newly adopted daughter,
the first of the next generation of our family.
My cousin’s baby shower,
her sister stricken with cancer,
the two of them never stopped smiling that day.
Family members tight in together, both sides,
at my grandmother’s
then my aunt’s
then my cousin’s funerals.

Detroit is my family,
my history,
my love.