The art is mine as well — a photo taken soon after I did, indeed, move back to Chicago, with a chalk & charcoal effect added.

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Embrace Me, Chicago
by Michelle Jacobsen

Icy blasts of winter’s wrath
whip through your marble canyons
and gritty streets of grime ground in
by the heavy feet of weary workers.
Then you invite summer, short but vicious,
with its hot, damp demon breath that
rushes through the city with a relentless desire
to chase and find and choke and kill.
Your downtown crown sparkles for those
who swarm to your magnificent mile,
rapturously oblivious to those less fortunate
with lives in miles less magnificent.
Life in your arms is never easy, Chicago,
but then I never asked for easy.
You challenge me fiercely with great bravado,
and I joyfully accept your ultimatum.
For at the end of each day I’m stronger
and tougher than I was the day before,
and I can settle peacefully into the comfort
of your grudgingly approving embrace.