Genius Loci
(Oakland)
Make it
the place
it was then,
so full it split
vision to live
there in winter
so late & wet
abundance
toppled toward
awful — birds
of paradise
a profusion
the ripe colors
of anodized
metal; in gutters
umbrellas
smashed
like pigeons,
bent ribs bright
among black
slack fluttering;
camellias’
pink imagoes
dropping
into water
& rotting,
sweet stink —
& did not
stop :
the inundated