![[simpleton]](img/thesimp.gif)
February 9, 2010
Why would anybody pull a trigger in San Francisco?
|
![[Granada Cafe.]](img2/verse/granadacafe.jpg)
A city made for the neutron bomb,
I thought: to kill all the people, but leave intact
Molinari's and the third-floor walkups stacked
above the Outer Mission; calm
Excelsior bars;
dead cable cars;
Seacliff mansions banked in spray;
a red jumper's bridge lying on a bed of cloud,
just like in magazines. The charms were never loud:
They lounged in solitude and gray
whispering dawn.
The bringing on
of people always killed the mood.
No man? No problem: A Carter-era flash of violence
and I've got my perfect place: beauty and silence
blended, where I can turn and brood
upon my clean,
beige and green,
depopulated paradise.
I'd follow a glistening sidewalk, to the apartment where
our kid's friend's parents lived. Their names were Rich and Claire.
You never met people so nice.
Making new friends
usually ends
at graduation, but these two grew
like honeysuckle on us. Claire and I on the floor
of the kitchen, with spouses gone and kids behind a closed door,
as easy as an old brown shoe,
sampled some
of her father's plum
brandy from Croatia, reclined
in each other's talk. We could have kissed, I know.
But somehow it was more intense to let love flow
unanswered, hotter to keep in mind
that if her phone
or my phone
rang with Rich or my old lady
at that moment, we'd still feel like we'd been caught:
guiltier, almost, than real lovers, for having thought
ourselves too good for such a shady
setup. That's why
the bomb that I
drop will not kill Claire or Rich
or their kid. And also Claire's black-sheep sister
was pretty cool. So she gets spared, as well as Mr.
Dominic the Buddhist, which
reminds me too
of the people who
were on some trip to Tahoe -- my last
communal, groovy, backwoods hippy getaway.
They'd all want to live, or not, but either way
they should have the choice. And massed
in a human wave
with those I'd save
are their own friends and family.
For why keep a person alive but broken by loss?
That was the lesson of Astyanax: If you toss
one you have to toss everybody.
Word gets around,
and soon the ground
is thick with hopeful refugees
calling for neutron-bomb-proof suits -- the same way
they once demanded free health care for cats or no-pay
rental schemes or subsidies
for former gang
leaders. The clang
of cable cars brings tourists whom
I never minded either, for I was an outsider too.
With giant packs, buzzing Croatian and French, each new
group seemed like a springtime bloom.
Their stinky hands
and moist tans
were evidence of open minds.
I ended up sparing so many, in the city by the bay,
it was like some big love-in for Earth and Gaia Day.
And even the lord's own left-behinds
I wouldn't calm
with a neutron bomb.
|
http://www.simpleton.com
|