After school I go down to Main Street.
It has the oldest shops in Ship’s Haven
and even older people, who have seen all sorts of things.
Once, Mrs. Li told me that she remembers
when there were more wagons pulled by horses
than cars on the road.
Main Street is less than a mile
away from school,
and I can run pretty fast,
past the redwood park
where kids from school play baseball,
past our apartment
to where the river crosses the middle of town,
to the hill just above Main Street.
From there, when there isn’t any fog,
you can even see San Francisco to the north
and the ocean far away.
My grandfather tells me how his boat sailed right past here
on its way to Angel Island,
when he first came to America, a long, long time ago.