On Crows & Cheetos

by BINX RIVER PERINO

If you were to step into the hard-soled shoes 
of a not-so-distant ancestor, you’d walk 
through a boulevard not unlike this one. 

This is the historic district, claimed 
and carved by settlers, in a city named 
after wild onions, after chasing the tribes 

away from the Great Lake, after the Great Fire 
swallowed their city of planks, after towering 
centennial monuments. You’d see 

one in the boulevards with a poised bald eagle. 
You look down the road and see dark crows 
peck at a broken bag of Cheeots and ask 

if this is all, if a bell would toll at all.