Springtime in San Francisco exists as a transitional point of regeneration and revival — a time when we slowly shed our winter ambivalence for summer’s renaissance.
Days like today
spring exist on stretches
between wide trunks and etched memories.
Spaces that fill the expanses left open
between left and right feet
lunging up staircases.
A muted ease in the bang of screen doors.
warm April twilights found in
familiar translations; the cry of a raven
the dripping bathroom sink; the wind caught inside his jacket;
stroke of a falling leaf to your shoulder
bare, freckled by time, mortality’s patina.
Your body is, somehow, here
wrinkled and creased.
Like inked notes.
Inside used books.
Bought online.
Feet hit cool wooden pathways
an anvil to the paperweight that
holds back letters of pleasure.
They fly out from clenched chests.
Curled around an open canary cage.
The key you lost was found on Lincoln Avenue.
You sing again.
To speak and hum; thunder in tune
that carcass hollowed from a cold winter.
Blank space filled in benevolence.
That malaise has gone,
cold air lost in the refrigerator light.
Your toes grab blades of grass.
Wet lips smack beneath evergreens.
You cough up butterflies.
Loose fingers meet in a forest of sensation.
You contain multitudes; you wonder what palms
think about underneath dull spring rain.
How words land in the minds of others; when they’re spoken
out loud to an audience of overgrown branches.
And so you continue to climb
on days like today.
When you stride toward.
Some meaning of renewed.
