Evening in Downtown Wheeling

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The hills and cliffs still bear the scars
of where the Ohio once slashed at them.
It is at the site of this attempted murder
that the city rests, still asleep in its work clothes
the crumbs of weathered roads and broken curbs
littering its chest.
Faded brick alleyways seep between buildings like old capillaries
The Capitol theatre wears the evening like a tux
Old leather volumes ferment silently in a bookstore
In bars, the carousing liturgy of stories being told
some legend, some folklore.

From the restaurant on the corner of Market and 12th,
the scent of hot chicken and succotash rises.