 This is a sonic call the hills Seven by seven our loving arms embrace Holding up the lights at Columbus draping with the beats our city by the bay reflecting nothing to waste With Grant and Pacific raising red lanterns amid the Cantonese Gray slicks white rabbit hops near Ashbury's summer flower nibbling at hope with milk standing courageously at Castro Yelling to Twin Peaks the ever-reaching Sutro Tower Chanting melodies down to Graham at the Golden Gate Polos To the on Broadway the Mabuhay Gardens and the Dead Kennedys Slam dancing near Fillmore's Grateful Dead buried at Gary With drifting cherry blossoms near Webster Hello, it's February Mewing cows at Geneva and balloon drops from the holding company Starkley Petrero's Ward 86 Sadly God picked all his flowers Mosconi gunned down at Polk bloody memories forever So last year I was a part of an organization coordinated entry program here in San Francisco and I Outreached Tay Youth foster care youth aging out of the system and in their in their vulnerability to share with me They inspired Me to write this about my experiences. This is called Mother in Pieces and It's inspired by Rumi's poem not here, which begins. There's courage Involved if you want to become truth It's called Mother in Pieces Oh mother how you repeat your words? They cycle like spokes on a bicycle and around they come from my left to my right They stall at my ears like a nat. I swat them away and I slowly glance up They're just words just Lovely out of order words. I don't even try to rearrange or put them in semblance Like the Sun and the Moon and the morning breeze through the Monterey pines lifting a little sap Carrying a few seeds. I gently cross my legs Place my bent elbow on my thigh my thumb under my chin my index finger near my temple I gently rub it. I look out through your second story open window The sunlight shifts a shadow stains the white picket fence below You pause and I no longer believe what I think one those late August afternoons in 1969 Phillip and I peddling our three-wheeled Batmobiles up the newly asphalted street The smell of tar following us into the cul-de-sac Glee upon our light sunburn faces The TV theme song snarling from our lips Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Batman Your voice echoes from the front door like an unwanted commercial break Kids got damn it time for dinner to a mini soldier Dwarf with fear my first day of school starched baby blue button-down shirt greased hair parted on the left that damn calic My Jim co-purchase Mickey Mouse lunchbox. I cried for hours for you to purchase Now grip tight in my right hand peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat enclosed Those moments at Safeway where you refused to let us eat white bread My smile exposing a missing front tooth violently knocked out the night before three Standing in front of your friends an impromptu gathering you and dad had returned from the Caribbean Everyone warm-faced and jubilant from ice cold beer and sweet wine You confront me about the 16 year old babysitter and what I had done with him My little soft unsullied body numb. I wanted to disappear to fade into the avocado green shag carpet I looked over my left shoulder tears Staining my eight-year-old face as he is escorted out the front door Becoming a tabooed memory the ultimate shame blackening my soul Four that morning. I woke still holding you in my arms. I the child you the parent your garment stained with urine your Statement in a mad dog 20 mad dog 2020 blackout Claiming your Benjamin Franklin and you've just discovered electricity. I Was just thankful you hadn't found the car keys Five three minutes into the b-52s planet Claire Loudly ensnaring my college graduation party you and I sit quietly in the darkened family room Smoking a loosely rolled joint Everyone witnessing you were at times a very cool parent Especially when moods could be altered six Thanksgiving Day 1983 I had baked jiffy corn muffins with all my leftover indica shake Dad's girlfriend Shelley had bought sweet butter and we ate some of the oddly colored goods before dinner Accidentally the bird slid onto the dining room floor and we all laughed until we cried Eating and merriment with no two second rule in place. I know you loved him more than you hated him But you only ever shared the hate with us Seven on your knees in front of my bright yellow runabout pinto as I attempted to pack the rest of my things You begging me not to move and leave you alone Even though both my siblings still remained and you were shacked up with another man I think he was a golfer a drinker. He wore brown polyester. I listened that day and relented But left you the following spring after you called me faggot after we disagreed about Who I could bring home and when eight Last year clearing out the family home of all possessions You had fruit refused to come home from the hospital. You never wanted to return So many memories so much pain Standing in each room and remembering walking through all the broken pieces mother nine Now leaning back my hands on each thigh I look over and you asked me if I'm alright It's unfamiliar and awkward tea How about some tea? I Stand and walk towards the open window and I close it tight. So we just have a short one here and Gentrification so this is called resentment of prose explodes Resentment of prose explodes and down the round the corner is 17th Street avocado toast and $8 lattes Where the boys in the 80s weren't the same anymore with a carefree blue pill and who knew I'd live to be 54 in a studio apartment near Dolores Park because I never smoked crystal meth yet and I never zero converted yet and I still don't have a plan but a languishing condom in my back pocket where my comb used to be because Folligly challenged I've become and I visit my mom and assisted living Everyone no two or three weeks and she asked me if I've lost weight And I smile instead of a turning a table over because a lot of my friends are dead and Had been dying or wasted away or moved away or relapsed into another world where having wine at dinner became an option and White knuckling it upon waking and eyeing five o'clock p.m. Too often Just past lunch and the fruit shelf has been Overrun by cisgender girls and their gender conforming boyfriends who loudly proclaim their love of diversity through their white spaces Sephora purchases and littered beer bottles and Gentrification invades from all sides with my shoulder blaze stiff and my fists tight clenching my teeth and By right hits the square and emails us our receipts straight out of the neighborhood