read the runes

Beating sidewalk stride

with pavement petitions.

Silence, the rejoinder.

Gray, the sky. What else? 

Across the drainage culvert

of fractal soil, emblazoned 

on the flat façade above 

a redbrick storefront space,

inscrutable assurance and

unlikely counsel came

to a casual supplicant, 

baffled, but consoled:

“U-Need-A-Sign.”

Joe Phelan writes from western Chicagoland, where he lives with his wife, sons, and an intrepid mutt. His poems have appeared in a variety of publications and can be found at joephelan.net.