You tumble out

of Montgomery BART. 

Up up. Skyscrapers

bully your downtown eyes

where lofting steel

slides into the keyhole

of San Francisco fog.

Wait you think:

who’s this Montgomery

that branded Montgomery BART?

John Montgomery is branded in history 

as a Civil War rear admiral

who raised an American flag

over the town of Yerba Buena.

That town soon became

the city of San Francisco.

Wait you think:

would John Montgomery 

know how to buy a Clipper Card

and whisk through a turnstile

in Montgomery BART

where you picture

John’s 19th-century body

rush onto a southbound train

like Gold Rush feet

stampeding toward capital gold.

You’re now on a first-name affinity

with John Montgomery

as you plod forward on Market

until you halt at Grant and Geary.

Wait you think: was Grant Avenue

christened after president

and Civil War general 

Ulysses S. Grant? If the South

triumphed back in 1865,

you’d be walking 

on Robert E. Lee Avenue.

Wait you think: what about 

this Geary in Geary Avenue 

that gears your mind 

into an urban bolt? John Geary

served as San Francisco’s first mayor

and fired shots 

in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Wait you think: why do I keep on

smacking into the Civil War

on these Downtown streets?

Concrete and history 

got poured into the sidewalks

you transverse across.