By Lorraine Walker Williams
Golden Gate-Marin Branch
Three short days in San Francisco,
never enough of cool fog draping the hills,
folding the city in softness,
holding it close like a secret
that is mine alone.
The city is best seen on your own once you
have lived there. You have to justify nothing.
Too many memories confront and
comfort: the focaccia in North Beach,
breakfast at Mo’s, Dungeness crab.
Sun seems to invite itself onto the glass
tables, the gleaming floors of what used-to-be
an old Italian restaurant, now serving
red and white thin crust pizza amid
stainless steel.
Walking steep streets down to the wharf,
bougainvillea bright pink on white walls;
the Golden Gate comes into view,
red span towering above a sea
aglitter with light.
Breeze off the Bay still briny sweet, gulls shriek,
dive off piers then perch on the rails waiting
on a Sunday afternoon as we pass
to line up for the ferry to cross the Bay
looking back at the city looking back.