San Francisco Poem by John Courtney

You'll find a window open
facing the night,
one pair of athletic shoes
under blue jeans
next to a mattress that lays
directly on the floor,
the stove cold,
cans of tuna open,
but no cat.

A more expensive pair of boots
below a wooden chair
that sits at a cheap desk,
you'll close the window
and accidentally spill
an ashtray on the floor.

You'll get on your knees
to clean it up and find
a pile of bills, birthday
cards you sent, letters
in curly handwriting,
but no woman.

A pizza delivery magnet
holding a prayer card on
a refrigerator stocked
with baking soda and beer,
a typewriter biting down
on a clean page, a toothbrush
in the kitchen sink, a
homeless dog will bark
and whimper away, paper
plates and generic pasta
when you open the cabinets.

You'll tug on a light-bulb chain
but nothing will happen,
the cockroaches will laugh
and kick their feet up.

You'll try to carry me
from the ruins of my mind,
but I am out dancing
with the homeless dog,
feeding a woman who writes,
the sidewalk rat, the well-fed
cat who comes and goes
as he pleases.