Gough and Chesnut, San Francisco, California. Courtesy of Ken Lund/flickr.
So we’re remembering the years
in San Francisco, the apartment
on Gough followed by stays
at two nearby boardinghouses—
breakfast and supper and a double room
at the end of a hall overlooking
maple branches
out past the fire escape—scraggly leaves
half eaten but holding on, a streetcar
passing every fifteen minutes,
students with backpacks
walking by, old Japanese ladies
carrying bags of groceries
back to their rooms, we’re
caught up in the urban excitement
we mostly brought ourselves—
the possibilities, the exposure,
the people from different places and
cultures we would encounter,
possibly get to know.
Here we are in the kitchen, the two of us,
almost eighty, gladdened by our
younger adventures, animated with
memories one of us recalls and the other
elaborates on.