April 4 An Evening in North Beach
You stopped by the Italian restaurant
said hello, sat at our table on
your way to work, eating nothing before
the 6 hour shift but the dinner red and then
a second full glass. I didn’t know to think
anything of it. When you left into the night
air, my companion motioned to the door
and you down the street. She already has
a problem, she told me. I’ve seen it many times
in the city she said. It drinks its young.
April 5
I want to go back
I want to go back to that moment
that must exist in your memory or perhaps
mine. That moment in time where you were
still you. And I wonder if you’d known that particular day
would be the day that divided your life, our lives
into the who she was and who she became. You were
so light—light itself. And a decade plus descent
into darkness into a you even you didn’t recognize.
Throwing Chanclas 