Moods shift when the fog
building by the gate to the bay
decides enough, it’s time to begin
the slow seep through hilly streets
at dusk and even the steady hum
of cable under California changes.
I was looking for changes
like others, surprised by fog,
unaware that the hum
was the sound of the bay
being pulled through the streets
so that new life can begin.
The Pyramid reminds you: To begin
is not so easy a task, that changes
aren’t simply names of new streets
and that wispy sensation is not fog
but the desire to keep fear at bay,
the need to escape elsewhere ho-hum.
On Stockton Tunnel you feel the hum
of Chinatown’s night about to begin.
To the right, a pagoda; the left, the bay.
Different tourists are the only changes
to routine, hugging themselves against the fog,
shivering in shorts jeered at by smarter streets.
It’s windbreaker weather in these streets
and in the Tenderloin the toothless hum
with black-dog breath and curse the fog
as they collect cans and cardboard and begin
hoping another gray night brings changes
to promises broken by that bastard bay.
In the Castro, the boys strut and stare and bay.
In the Mission, Jackie D takes to the streets.
In North Beach, cappuccinos cry about changes.
On Fisherman’s Wharf, the registers hum
while on Nob Hill, the bejeweled begin
their own glamorous descent into the fog.
And so it is for you to feel the hum, to smell the bay,
and it is you who must taste the streets and begin
the changes that, inevitably, will be cleansed by the fog.