Within the hour
most of those vessels
slipping in and out of sight
were right here
by this hard wall.

Now they float
without the Lake:
they mediate
the air and the cloud.

Lean and desperate powerboats
tear around this dredged-up island
with water-buried roars,
the marina lingering off Lake Shore Drive,
balconied apartments
elegantly overhead and northward,

Cafe le Tour suspended
high, grave, and curvaceous,
the wind draping year-around, deep
as fur across the cheek in bright winter,
gray as this water
lifted in mist.

My eyes are worse lately,
so the smoky solution
where the long-stemmed sailboats run
may truly be the limit of my sense.

I would rather not ask
if anyone near me
sees the same sight as I.