Fruitvale Bridge Park
1.
Fruitvale Bridge Park
where fresh water mixes
with ocean tides,
storm drains
from Oakland
empty into its mouth
wide open
rents are industrial
and zoned cheap,
homeless
hold out for fish
away from tent cities,
the favelas
that crowd source
highway exits,
Fruitvale
where a Monarch butterfly
sucks the life
from a milkweed
and lacy anise leans
on a cyclone,
gets off on it.
Now riding past me–
a man who balances
aluminum cans,
plastic bags
on the handlebars
of a bicycle.
2.
I prefer intertidal zones,
brackish places,
salt marshes of sweet and sour,
fresh and salt,
a sandwich of charoset and horseradish,
honey and the taste of root knowledge.
Fringes of the city where I grew up
amid warehouses and plate glass studios,
auto body shops smelling of motor oil
promising to fix a vehicle in 24 hours.
Dark, dirty ceilings
with batmobile things
and equipment only men
in overalls knew how to handle.
I fell in love with the blue collar
of cities—What it took
to make things happen,
behind-the-scenes
for stars to come out,
coffee breaks,
roach coaches,
deliveries and pickups,
and all the gravelly curses
that made a day go by
inside fans of corrugated
aluminum siding
wrapped around a city block
cooling its heels
against the whine
of heavy metal,
almost like the Fruitvale mudflats,
places that stink of low tide,
spangles of window glass
on sidewalks
bequeathed by minor gods
of the neighborhood
on their way to the courthouse
at the outreach edges
where rules
are broken and ignored,
for this
is an in-between place
that doesn’t attract attention
unless there’s a hip bar or club,
or a politician stumping for votes,
people who go about the business
of eating, sleeping, breathing
and making their own peace.