New Poetry


Tenderloin Heights

Polk Street on a Wednesday afternoon
people wait on street corners for
some kind of luck

a block to the south
men sleep on sidewalks
and in doorways

a block to the north
people sit at window tables
in little restaurants
drinking 50 dollar bottles of wine

on a day when loneliness
follows you close like some sad-eyed dog

you stand on a corner and look around
and all directions seem the same

the busses going up and down Geary Boulevard
are crammed with far too many people
going to places they’d rather not go

and the sadness in your bones
will not be named
or explained away.


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