Page 60 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #9
P. 60
51
Fruitvale Bridge Park
1.
Fruitvale Bridge Park where fresh water mixes with ocean tides,
storm drains
from Oakland
empty into its mouth
wide open
rents are industrial
and zoned cheap, homeless
hold out for fish
away from tent cities, favelas
that crowd source highway exits,
Fruitvale
where a Monarch butterfly sucks the life
from a milkweed
and lacy anise leans
on a cyclone,
gets off on it.
Now riding past me—
a man who balances aluminum cans,
plastic bags
on the handlebars
of a bicycle.
2.
I prefer intertidal zones,
brackish places,
salt marshes of sweet and sour,
fresh and salt,
a sandwich of charoset and horseradish, honey and the taste of root knowledge.
Fringes of the city where I grew up
amid warehouses and plate glass studios, auto body shops smelling of motor oil promising to fix a vehicle in 24 hours. Dark, dirty ceilings
with batmobile things
