I found the city a pitiless thing.
It smelled of steel, concrete and the bay.
I use to sit on the sea wall that edged
my old college condo, the one I shared
with a black cat, and sing Otis Redding-
skipping the whistling part of his song
because my lips could never purse the
right tune- and watch the tide roll in
catching rainbows in the sun’s glint.
It was the inhabitants I couldn’t take,
all rude and loud, smelling of salt
and stale fish scales and crab shells,
so snared in tiny toils, frail and idle,
their itching needs thirsty and *****.
I lost my wonder in the traffic dust,
the night haze and starless nights.
I avoided touching that life less
it should defile me in its lost light,
night terrors and phantasms.
Then, in the small church in
the out of the way corner,
I found her, a strange vision
trembling, ready to emerge
just past the reach of my mind
and the urge of my will. She existed
beyond all jaded aims and
drab dissemblements,
something unfounded, unbuilt
but ready, waiting to be built on.
On my birthday she bought me
a lounge chair to grace my
unfurnished balcony, on the
very day I purchased my own.
And there we sat (my desire),
watching the city unseal itself
across from me in a sweltering love,
constantly revealed, being
forever built and rebuilt on
in pain and unfathomable will.
