After a string of in-heat dog days, the sky unlatches their cloud gate, lets loose a raining kennel of cats and dogs clawing my face raw. I sprint through this stampede south of Golden Gate Park within a grid I’m lucky to have a mailing address in, lucky like an immunized fox with all […]
Through my living room window, I spot a peacock resident prowling Occidental and 61st Street yet they don’t pay a mortgage or buy a $7 mocha latte. I must say — their sapphire blue body and long verdant tail rejuvenate Occidental Street with a douse of untamed colors. No one can land on […]
We walk in May Day sunlight where Menace barks at a bulldog chained behind a fence at the bent junction of Market and 35th. I pet my twelve-year-old poodle mix. After he squeezes out a shit ball under the overpass of the MacArthur 580, a woman’s unhoused scream slaps me back into Menace’s wet […]
I lie on my queen bed or do I lay with my queen? Does my bedroom monarch lay or lie on me? As a monarch butterfly perches on my kingly appointed shoulder, I scamper out of my mailbox kingdom to stand in Golden Gate Park’s golden sunshine. I ceased scampering so a new winged dynasty […]
The first time I lied to our daughter, I declared “you can do whatever a man does.” Words shot out like a pressurized sprinkler onto her freshly formed frame. The second time I lied, I spat out “he didn’t mean to hit you.” Words morphed into American-made bullets. The third time I lied, I whispered […]
In a grocery storeoff Tenderloin Road,a venison strutsto the meat display displayed like a photoshootmodel hungryfor a juicy tenderloin. Wait. Does a venison or deer strut? I got it. Behind the deer,a lamb prances towardthe packaged meatwrapped in oil-based plastic with an innocenceakin to my daughter’sjoy for a lollipop wrapped in oil-based plasticborn from the […]
On a neighborhood sidewalk cracked by finger roots, I spot you through the MLK Café window where your feet hook into MLK Way down the block from Marcus Books. Have you read any Black authors this year, this decade, this century? You breach MLK Café to buy your regular black coffee from a […]
In the Heart and Vascular Center waiting room, a Malaysian woman from Reno with a face filled with stories throws a nod my way. “What brings you here?” “My fiancé needs surgery to close a hole in her heart. What about you?” “My husband is getting a heart transplant from the heart of […]
into a dead raccoon sprawled over a dying oak tree’s finger roots wrapping around feral decomposition at 26th & Telegraph 2 blocks from where I hunt down my dreams on a bedspread plain before I snap up for a raccoon soup — oh my mistake — a Gogi Time spicy Korean soup at the incision […]
The 21st Century is being built on 20th-century concrete. Concrete cracks like my sandy-colored face under a Global Warming sun. I transverse down Madison Street carrying a plastic bag made from petroleum in my rubber shoes made from petroleum as I wear my plastic glasses made from petroleum. All this […]