for Akilah Oliver (1961-2011)

It’s mild in Brooklyn today

Though it’s raining in San Francisco

We’ve both been jealous over the years

Moving from city to suburb to city

The East is not the Flatirons

On a snowy Thursday morning

The Flatirons are not Fort Greene

With the sun turning back into God

From Kelis to Creedence

It’s too air conditioned in The Catacombs

For any normal kind of breathing

Our legs are pins and needles

Strolling up and down Pearl St.

Until you leave Boulder for good

Rolling through as a heat wave once a summer

Falling right back into it all

A Sacred Naked Nature Girl

Undressing your love on video

Staring at a projection, that kind of breathing

It takes to become a bridge or canal

Bombed with paint, a phone call in the morning

A knock on the door, and you left Brooklyn

At the start of the season, and we’re having

Weather in San Francisco today

Feb 24, 2011