After Lee Ann Brown

I brought you a specious mushroom
and you made it a soup

I brought you a dog we groomed
with kitchen scissors

when we brought our documents to the wrong office
(now a school district building)
they said get out and we did

Michael Nutter, I dream of cutting your hair
but it’s gone

I wonder what keeps you occupied
when Obama went back to Chicago

we remembered he’s the kind of person
who can love a city

Ed Rendell came home but went on a diet
so there are fewer pictures of him
with cheesesteaks from recent years

I brought a letter to your office, Michael
signed by forty-five residents of my block

I brought you a spider plant
you kept lit up all winter

I sat up all night on Social Explorer
dreaming of what Philly could do
with its millions in unpaid property taxes

when you were mayor you had to
shake hands and visit baseball diamonds
you had to share your weather

half movie star, half priest
you went to bed for the city
and everyone in it