Along the marijuana
scented streets of San Francisco State University,
evening classes, students clump along Holloway Avenue,
smokers come out from behind parking meters that stand as centurions.

Houses glitter along the hills
and catch the sun’s last rays
before clocks fall back
shroud the coast in early night.

Already fog and mist, landscapes
turned from flowers
to succulents in the California drought,
walk the rickety plank

of long ago
when I held your ashes,
and emptied them
into the Bay,

your gritty remains
stung my fingers,
no wonder, two
thieves who stole

from each other—
a lick of salt,
a touch of black
brocade, red embroidery,

a fly-by-night marriage
where a caterer
handed us coupons
and winked when we left.

Then we were harbor seals
on a deck of cards
handing out
sweet bitterness

in the night air,
all the things
we meant to be
and weren’t.

Lenore Weiss is enrolled in the MFA Program at San Francisco State University. Her poetry has been published in Maple Leaf Review, Kindred, San Francisco Peace and Hope, Cactus Heart, Ghost Town, Poetica, Carbon Culture, BlinkInk, The Portland Review, La Más Tequila Review, Digital Americana, The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Books include Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012), Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014), and Mortal forthcoming from Black Cat Moon Press. www.lenoreweiss.com.