Fog Meridian

1:15 in the afternoon

wisps of fog spill over
Sutro and Twin Peaks

bearing northeast down
Market Street flooding sidewalk
Indio stands selling
woolen cable knits in August

gusts of scrap-paper
blow past mid-westerners
caught in short-pants and hasty
long-sleeve drug-store fleece

pulled over hands,

collars pulled over ears

my City --

we'd yet made promises

all those years ago

under that bright

late-morning September sun,

standing atop Alamo Square

gazing eastward at rows

of Victorians pretty
as lace edging on cityscape
skyscrapers bleached white-gold

as ribbons of windows
glistened like inlaid marcasite stones

your warmth on my shoulders

it was all so easy to kid ourselves

that we could pay the shroud 

approaching from out west

its mist

its winds