Two Cities

   Salt Lake

High spires of piety

No smoking on the grounds

Wide streets high wind

The hotel leaks orchestral sounds.

“Women and men pulled carts

Like oxen.” Liquor sold

By package only. All the night

Wind again rain and unexpected cold.

The lake continues to recede; the girls

Forsake the faith; the Mormon hours pass.

We dutifully examine Brigham Young’s

Gold inkwell (in a case of thumb-marked glass).

   San Francisco

Beside the bay, observers penetrate

Distance upon distance, cloud on cloud,

Crayons of smoke that sketch blue sky

With gray appeals. We pause, stretched side by side,

Safe for the moment from the nudging crowd,

Laughter for strangeness, and old myths crisping in the grate.

These trinkets, essences that we have saved,

Sheathed valuables that hold us here

Where gull-cry, wave-wash, dash of listening sea

Stir memory and love, are suddenly 

Minute survivors, permanent and clear. 

—We must go back. Your eyes are mirrors, strangely grave.