First Day of Spring, Chicago

The calendar says spring

but the city laughs.

I wake to silence thick with snow—

not the soft kind,

but the kind that falls like an insult.

Heavy, wet,stacked in defiance on the porch steps.

The daffodils are buried,

the mail is buried,

my hope is buried.

I join the crawl on Lake Shore Drive,

headlights cutting through grey

like blunt knives.

The skyline looms,

half-swallowed by cloud,

unimpressed.

Somewhere near Oak Street Beach,

I glance sideways

and see the lake

rising against itself.

Ten-foot waves

hurl themselves at the breakwall

as if trying to break in,

storming the beach

like it remembers

being ocean.

No one looks.

We are all prisoners of the wheel—

knuckles white, coffee cooling.

The storm is background noise.

But I keep seeing those waves—

how they rise

without fear,

how they crash

without apology.

It is the first day of spring

and the city

refuses to bloom.