CHICAGO VOICES: An excerpt from "Top Hat (A Poem Dedicated to James Yellow Bank)," by E. Donald Two-Rivers

Our old pal Ted Aliotta said
"We have another angel pullin' for us now."
He was speakin' 'bout you Top Hat.
And I remember nights
in alley ways of Uptown.
Dog Soldiers lookin' for the center
tryin' to be a community ...
you with your gitfiddle
and me with my poems.

E. Donald Two-Rivers is an Ojibwa poet, playwright and storyteller currently residing in Chicago. His books include "A Dozen Cold Ones" (poems), "Survivor's Medicine" (a short story collection which won the 1999 American Book Award), and "Pow Wows, Fat Cats and Other Indian Tales" (poems). "Top Hat" appears in the Polyphony Press anthology titled, "The Thing About Hope Is..."