Goodbye SF Thursday morning
-Allegra
Brucker
I leave on red vinyl.
Travel across the golden gate
which, is actually red.
Through desolate mountain ranges
to the place where
endless apple orchards no longer matter
and are being ripped up for the sake of fine wine.
I’m headed out of
the polluted sunshine
which burns my face
to the place with rivers and trees
still growing and flowing.
Where children are born beautiful
and tend to stay that way.
Through the rainbow tunnel I travel
many car rivers flow out of this bay
in place of the water which once
flowed clean into it
surrounded by forest
filled with wild things.
There are plenty of freaks here now
but the trees are gone.
The forest are houses
the rivers are streets.
I swim upstream
like a salmon to the waters
where I was born
following the scent
engraved at birth or before
in my DNA.
This time I come to spawn words,
I know one day I’ll return to give birth
to a child blossoming from with in me.
Today I raise poems like children
and send them out to meet
the minds of strangers in distant cities.
Now I bring them home
and give birth among loved ones.
I survived freeways and
sunny days.
Men looking for spare change,
the late night train
to 24th and mission.
Walked by blood left on streets
from last nights confrontation.
I walked down streets lined with
rainbow flags.
Today I was birthed out of the city
through rainbow tunnel
into sunshine,
wheels going fast on asphalt.
Etna Summit
I am going to the place
where I can sing my song loud.
Music rises off my flesh
out of my soul,
and people they listen.
Where I am going trees bend
to tell me stories of salmon
and stone and forest fires
of deer, bear, and mountain lion
running free.
Where all I see is mountain ranges
giving themselves to
rivers and thunder clouds.
Sunny days bring spring flowers
up out of the soil to bloom.