The Box of San Francisco
by Jill Hokanson

I bet when they built San Francisco they were trying to cram it into a box. That's why the houses are all squished up next to each other, turning the hills into crowded piles of pink, green, orange, blue and an occasional rouge.

That's why you can hardly walk out of the concrete and asphalt Sam's parking lot before you're surrounded by remnants of red gold China -- Restaurants that smell of egg rolls and stir-fried broccoli That's why the shiny fat sunbathing sea lions clap their flippers to the steel pan band on the wharf

They tried to cram San Francisco into a box with clam chowder in sourdough bowls steaming in the shop on the corner and the corndogs with mustard, roasting at a plywood stand in the street and a bona fide antique carousel clanging in the square just beyond a lone trumpeter with an overturned black hat, empty at his feet

They tried to cram San Francisco into a box, but it just wouldn't fit, quite All those sounds and smells and colors first wafted out all strung together through the corners for awhile then exploded, earthshaking from the tiny compressed space Leaving me with just a box in pieces

September, 2002