The view from above
Powell slides over the district
like a walk on water, like a thief in a store,
through a hole, a leg
midair when the lights hesitate, then stick,
finding the slipper.
Or that’s how it seemed, didn’t it,
as K. dragged me along in her scramble to beat the rush
the day the world ended. There.
A local catastrophe, bien sûr,
San Francisco of monsoon or hurricane. Of volcano
that hadn’t erupted (for years, but would, eventually, bien sûr,
what do you think all that construction is about?).
But that’s all I was to know then it wasn’t
my place it was her place.
Seeing as her guest.
That day, didn’t I? I, I mean we
(we zoomed around in her red car, didn’t we? didn’t it go?)
floored it. Complained about parking spaces and bad roads,
high gas. Skimmed books and made love, exceptionally
etc. among the cats and the carpets and candles
stacked on the counters and bookshelves and tables
undergirded with thick pillows (for the fallout).
The rent was horrible, naturally.
What door does this open?
I went for the ride but I wasn’t
betting anything I didn’t have.
Another day another man
might’ve visited someone else,
another end (the real one) another dead world
Shh, here it comes
stuck under yards of soot, not even sure of the time
but let’s not go to Pompeii: let’s attempt to describe here.
What if I were to say the antithesis of Lot’s wife?
She strapped on heels to go places,
the air seemed to say, go places.
The fogs and the hills and the zephyrs,
the good-coffee aroma on the streets
like a kind of milk you could float in,
baptize and forget the way in,
(sinister, be calm)
the Haight, the Castro,
Fisherman’s Wharf, the gut of the world’s end
scrawled out in little blinks from the tugs,
honks, majestic blares, the best dinners in Chinatown,
(I love you Kim Novak, I always… goodbye)
the last baseball season at Candlestick,
a glove, well-oiled and needing to flex
to feel the bones inside slipping and caught:
a love song: Follow me, I’m going.
originally published in Del Sol Review