Urinetown
by MICHAEL PERKINS
i am a chicken running around
the starbucks in logan square
with its head barely hung from
its body, pacing
window to window, flailing
at the limb. i plaster on the bravery
to ask the red shirt’d man
walking out the bathroom
the code. he hesitates unsure
then whispers, 72638.
perhaps grass always
finds its way up the ground,
the sidewalk cannot help but
crack its spine.
Michael Perkins (they/them) is a poet and essayist from Cary, IL. They graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BA in political science and minor in creative writing. They have poems published or forthcoming in Clamour, Transients Magazine, Montage Arts Journal, and elsewhere. In their free time, they like riding public transit, trying to learn music theory, and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race.