THREE POEMS
Night Heron
What now? You’d flown infrom a Midwest city namedfor its rowdy summertimeabundance lying saying youwere coming to visit friendsin San Francisco and I had takenthe train from chilly Oaklandto meet you and we rode northcarefully not touching I took youto the tiny one-room apartmentI had escaped to after a badbreakup and fried us nervouslysome potatoes in a cast iron pana little rosemary which wedid notme hard and we went in a rushto the mattress I bought off a guyin a semi-famous band and had onlythe day before gotten offthe floor and onto the pinewoodbedframe I’d found and hoistedon my back and carrieddown out of north Berkeley armswide weaving through the sidestreetstoeing the center line to avoidsnagging the buckeyes leaning outit was about sufferingin public it was dramaticsure but the dramas of my lifethose days were pitchedas high as I could stand highersometimes I said breathless and you said and later out at the edgeof the lake huddled againstthe damp wind hot greasesoaking through a paper baglicking salt from eachother’s fingers obscenely a nightheron peered up at us fromthe reeds small hunched dippingits shining beak in the shallows notparticularly beautiful but a heronnevertheless the same onewe were sure we saw perchedon the awning outside the theaterwhose marquee shouted sloganslike WE LIVE IN A FAKEDEMOCRACY and PREVENT UNWANTEDPRESIDENCIESWITH HAND COUNTED PAPERBALLOTS and later the cabinwe rented with friendsin Calaveras snowmelt vaulting
