Death at the Window

From my window I can see San Francisco,
and a couple walking a dog,
the man joyfully swinging a bag of shit.

Death is a lone, friendless universe,
with no one to talk to ‘bout pending doom,
or the end of life,
or anything of any import.

Jack Kerouac was a drunk who partied in Frisco.
He woke up in hotel rooms with strangers after long wino benders.
He loved jazz. And haiku. And being a Buddhist bum.

From my window I can see the bay,
stretching landless and lightless to the prickly
San Francisco skyline.
I think of pizza in North Beach,
of noodles in Chinatown at the edges of the Financial District,
and finally of the lonely workaday hallways.

Death is something maudlin, something mundane.
Death is a plump martini
at the edge of a marble bar at a crashed gathering.
Death is knowing what you know and
not knowing what you know.