I75 Downtown, Cincinnati

Property boundaries overlaid with satellite imagery. Data Source: CAGIS (Cincinnati Area Geographic Information System) 2022.

A bundle of highway ramps snake and weave like veins

cut through the graded dirt.

Once parcels of prosperity for Southern immigrants,
they float above the freeway, ghosts ever haunting
the land that belonged to Black families,
taken by government officials, just one mile across the Ohio into freedom.

Three city blocks wide,
measured by the platt maps that still today illustrate the historic property lines
of every row house, social hall, and corner deli which stood here.

Welcome home to your back garden: a barren median, your church: a bent guard rail, your playground: asphalt divided by white dashed lines.

A neighborhood razed in the name of breathing air and dollars into
the dense urban grid. Today, a regularly clogged artery, lined with Semis delivering vats of light beer, processed chicken, and the American Dream to anyone still asleep.

Christian Umbach currently lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, where he works as a city planner, specializing in neighborhood engagement. He has always enjoyed writing both personally and professionally, and his passion culminated in completing a Creative Writing Minor at Allegheny College. Umbach’s poems are highly influenced by sense of place. As a diligent observer of all things both remarkable and mundane, he enjoys discovering the poetic images hidden within historic city maps, building facades, and astronomy textbooks.