Mommy, I want to be a crab Covered orange, a little red, just a dab, Soft inside the shell Hard on the surface where others see Then I wouldn’t feel so small When others threaten me.

Two women talk in the parking lot. A boy stands by his mother, just a tot. Do you want to play with Adam. Scowling little face says, “No ma’am.”

Stick and stones And a few pine cones This boy has an invention. It springs into being with The magic of intention. It’s a magic machine Producing cake, cookies, and everything in between. The wonder comes not from what is there But from the mind that creates with care.

Pigeons don’t care about prostitutes, strippers or porn. They only care about bits of bread and corn.

He watched her face. The quiet in her face. Calm. Happiness. He saw it. “Are you happy?” he asked. “Yes, I am,” she said. And having asked, and having said it, the happiness became shared. It belonged to them both. Sharing it made more happiness. Multiplied it. It enlarged beyond the moment of good circumstances […]

This morning, a morning in the hottest January in California history, The moon sits white and luminous over a lavendar bay. San Francisco, endlessly innovative San Francisco, is only a faint grey outline amidst the dust that refuses to clear. The grass should feel damp this morning or stiff with frost, But it feels dry, […]

The clouds were grey and purple, Like bruise, like the way I felt. A young woman got in the car at the casual car pool, Then her man–he called her Lisa. Silence, they didn’t speak though they were intimate. Left alone to drive, I meditated on my bruise, The pool of color collecting around Oakland, […]