a city condo/hiding out from god
Here, god walks on homeless feet with grimy dreadlocks playing congas for quarters while
watching from a sidewalk bar where he has just been served another dry California red
Here, god rides the bus home to Chinatown, holds a strap in the aisle, wears a face still stained
with his workday
Here, god walks the streets in tight-laced skirts, bursts out of a rented bed wearing only his
cowboy boots, paints the bay from a palette strapped to his kiteboard, pitting a wind that whips
one way against a current ripping the other way, wears a pure white silk shirt and pink-tongued
sneakers when he walks with his Saturday night girl, serves serious gin and tonics to tourists blue
with San Francisco summer, drops into a gallery to view a show of works by his most serious rival,
recommends the sushi restaurant on the corner even though he’s a vegan, sells music on the street
to those who listen but cannot play, sells art to those who cannot paint, sells flowers to highrise
prisoners, sells food to those who cannot cook, sells beads to those who trade in islands,
walks past brick churches without checking the locks, stuffs anarchist fliers in the mailboxes,
reads poetry in a red beret with a thriftstore brooch, writes plays with her immigrant husband
who says he knew Janis, works a concierge desk but can’t give you accurate directions because
she’s not from around here, rides Friday night streets with his vatos in a tailfinned convertible
Here, god graffitis an alley with benedictions in pictures, digs out a crusty trunk filled with his
grandmother’s secret life
Here is where god has been tending bar forever and a day and the pepper steak is as good as it
ever was
Here, where god played the 49ers every Sunday, giving the churchgoers time to be by themselves
where god dropped acid with Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead and was inspired to rekindle
Burning Man, where god’s underbelly casts its most colorful glow, where god flies on pigeon
wings, pecks at the cracks in the streets while dodging taxi tires and steel-toed boots
rooting at the edge of himself, where colors and landscapes reinvent it all while god sleeps
like the city
where god hides.
