SoMa Literary Review - High above Strawberry Hill

High above Strawberry Hill

By Dave Oprava

Sitting high, sometime midday,

she passes the roach that scuttles away

and falls down six hundred sixty six feet

to land on Battery Street ,

picked up by a kid who will spend the rest of his life

wondering why God smokes,

she laughs as she sees what I am pointing at,

the hair on the very top of his pate

are the trees of the Presidio,

oh, I get it now, it's a head isn't it,

his mouth is open, he's got something to say,

yes, yes, yes she says, look,

where two-eighty crosses the one-oh-one,

that's his eye, and there, Monster Park is his upper lip,

which I kiss and she smiles back,

the balloon taking a different tack,

he's upside-down now,

she moans so we swing our inclination

and assume a variation on the theme,

he's sneezing she says, see,

the naval shipyard is coming out of his nose,

I wrinkle mine and squint, yeah, kinda',

but not quite right and how are you going to reconcile

that there is a spike sticking out of his head

in the form of the Golden Gate bridge, yes she says,

I see your point, did you bring the other joint,

I shake my head no, I didn't think we would up this long,

dawn a long way gone,

is it time to go home yet, she says, yes,

where shall we land, pity he's only a head and not a hand,

I hold hers as we descend with warmth of the day

seeping out of her and into the ether above the bay.