During Holy Week, we hire ourselves out
to row them around the man-made lake named
after the famous Chicago architect— tourists
dressed in woven tops, sweating in new acrylic
sweaters, afraid the flat-bottomed boats
shaped like swans might tip them over
into the tea-colored water where
they will drown. We don’t tell them
the water’s only thigh-high, that fifty
years ago a fountain strung with simple lights
sprayed clear rainbow jets into the air at night.
We pull on the oars and go in circles, answering
queries about where to find the sweetest
strawberries, that carved figurine of a little
man whose member springs to attention when
you lift the wooden barrel encasing his loins.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.