Wrightings

  There are only two, one left, one right. There used to be four and often more— you didn't use the closet as I wished. Those shoes so big I often tripped over them.   Heavy, clunky, metal braces under the arch. You had to take them off every time we passed through an airport, even before the shoe bomber.   I tripped over them once when you weren't home, and I took one to throw out of anger but couldn't—   I feared the damage it might do.   Then I considered the damage it might have done, not on a neck but on a back during a raid, you with gun drawn, directing someone not to move, put his hands behind his back.   Those shoes you wore in the uniform, I respected but feared, because you might not come home. Kevlar vests don't fit women well.   Unlike those shoes that brought you back until you decided it was time to leave— shoes no longer block my doorstep, no longer trip me in the dark.   This poe...

  The time draws near for the Harbor Bridge to leave us. I remember those who trembled at her height on a restless, windy night, and those who ran their proud race across her silver span. No longer will she cradle our passage to North Beach or crown our city’s shining view. Oh, Harbor Bridge, we adore you and all the steadfast ships you welcomed through yet bigger and better, they say, has come to rescue the day for our shipping economy and the desalination of our sea. We will hold your memory in photographs, in sunlit paintings of our Sparkling City by the Sea.