Sunday in Golden Gate Park
Posted: 26 May 2018, 21:04
Sunday in Golden Gate Park
The day lilies lifted their trumpets
the way the Navy band
lifted theirs in Golden Gate Park
on that Sunday afternoon,
the John Philip Sousa marches
carrying us along—
into the Japanese
tea garden where koi drifted,
their patterns of scales as bright
as spring kimonos
--and later into each
other's arms.
Eight weeks later
I keep ringing your phone,
but the messages I leave
are unanswered prayers.
You’re like a book I borrowed
and lost the same day,
and which I search for
everywhere.
I trail women who look nothing
like you except for their
yards of blonde hair
into the Academy of Sciences,
the Asia Art Museum,
the De Young...
On Sundays I inevitably
drop by the bandstand
but the only ones on stage
are pigeons bobbing their heads
as if recalling previous
park performances.
You're never there
among the rows of benches,
where I sit for hours—
near the empty fountain,
my hopes, coins spent
eight weeks ago.
The day lilies lifted their trumpets
the way the Navy band
lifted theirs in Golden Gate Park
on that Sunday afternoon,
the John Philip Sousa marches
carrying us along—
into the Japanese
tea garden where koi drifted,
their patterns of scales as bright
as spring kimonos
--and later into each
other's arms.
Eight weeks later
I keep ringing your phone,
but the messages I leave
are unanswered prayers.
You’re like a book I borrowed
and lost the same day,
and which I search for
everywhere.
I trail women who look nothing
like you except for their
yards of blonde hair
into the Academy of Sciences,
the Asia Art Museum,
the De Young...
On Sundays I inevitably
drop by the bandstand
but the only ones on stage
are pigeons bobbing their heads
as if recalling previous
park performances.
You're never there
among the rows of benches,
where I sit for hours—
near the empty fountain,
my hopes, coins spent
eight weeks ago.