one more turn and it's
the Mission District. i'm taking pictures
of strangers.
these are my people, and

this is what they look like
when they're caught living
on camera:
taqueria green and the late afternoon light
reflected in her thin brown hair;

troublemakers on the corner
watching troublemakers
down the block by the
market;

two twisted lovers intertwined
in black and white jackets,
lips touching lips
that have touched lips
that have touched skin
that has touched someone famous
(before he was famous);

Annelyse, buying a lime
because it's three for a dollar
and she has thirty three cents, and there's
poetry to be talked out

down the street
in an unlocked playground
between the crumbs of my
one-dollar cookie;

Annelyse, cast in the leftover windstorm
that we brought to keep the
words we spoke
in morse-code in-jokes
and Bright Eyes quotes;

Annelyse, at the BART station,
and Stephen Malkmus is
still ringing in our ears,
and she is still ringing in my fingers

(it's just been minutes since she
took me by the hand
through the exit of the theatre
as if we were lovers
from the same set of suburbs,
not poets
from different states
not the kids from
summer camp and summer camp
and summer camp
that we are);

and my night trails off as my train gets going
and she waves goodbye to me
and I can wave back
I can wave
I can wave back all I want
but if I take pictures, I have proof.

I have a lot of proof.