Member Poem

it’s 1979
and I’ve returned.
I didn’t know I loved the city so much
that after my salad years
I am a wintry man
after all;
returning to the city of my birth—
San Francisco.
it’s 1990
and I’m walking
through the city without a center
to my tall Victorian home
from Latin mass and Saint Patrick’s
and I see the Gay Freedom Day Parade.
I didn’t know I could love myself
and the bravery of others
so much—
the Latina Lesbians, Gay Dentists, Black and White Lovers, and the Gays from Bakersfield.
I think of him, my Cesar,
and I know this is yet another party he would enjoy
but missed
not because he was a sinner—
simply because of a bubble perched on a needle.
And I think back to when he wagged his finger at me
when he tried to scorn me.
I wonder if he knew
what I didn’t.
I didn’t know that what I loved most of all
was the life he brought,
the force he infused
in my days.