We fished together, Crissey Pier.
She was Japanese or Chinese. Maybe Korean.
I was too young,
I thought I loved her.
I loved how she threw out her crab net,
How she sang, how she looked at me, how she stared
out at the sea.
We began walking home together past the Palace of
the Legion of Honor.
A gift to San Francisco on an ancient Potter’s field,
I think I want to have you.
I should like that.
But my breasts. I’ve had surgery.
Hiroshima
I’m sorry.
I can’t.
Walked home through the cypress, the Eucalyptus.
Potter’s field.
She didn’t come the next Saturday.
Or the Saturday after that.
One Saturday I found in my tackle box,
(I’d been absent for an hour to walk
On the beach near Fort Point)
I found a saucer, blue, white, Imari. Small.
Few petals of Forget-me-not blue.
Underneath,
Nested fishhooks.