San Francisco, March 1990

for Joy

To wake late,
the sun washing over the room
like mead to bathe a drunken swimmer;
to stand at the window at ten a.m.
in only your underwear
and then to dress;

to enter the rows of buildings,
the steep streets winding
up and around these hills
perfumed with the smell of the sea
and the seas of people,
while the sun is at its peak
and the sky is a woman in orgasm;

to hold the hand of some woman
of dark skin, her eyes and hair
darker still, like her knowledge of love
and its finer points; to find yourselves
sharing clam chowder from a bowl
made from a hollowed loaf of bread
and tossing bits of crust to a flock of gulls,
a hundred white-winged warriors
screaming as they battle one another
over crumbs; or to be with her in Chinatown
eating lemon chicken and steamed cornw;

and later, buryin yourself in the warmth
between her thighs, your tongue trailing
her slender shoulders, her breasts the color
of caramels, her quivering belly, then suddenly
inside her like some strange swimmer:
you have come to this place where the sun always sets
and you are the sun going down on the sea.

July 26, 1989
Background art created by Brandi Gabrielle Hubiak