Migration, Judah Streetcar, San Francisco

 

Migration, Judah Streetcar, San Francisco

“You have the face of an otter.”
She sits beside him, the only open seat.
“Yip,” he says imitating an otter’s bark,
then wonders: Do otters bark?

He, professor of anthropology, white man
with red beard recently divorced
taking the Judah streetcar to campus
where he will conduct a seminar
on Incan migration patterns.

She, to his practiced eye, of Native American
bone structure and flesh (smooth, flawless)
dressed as though taking the Judah streetcar
to mop hallways and swab toilets.

Pleasantly he asks “Do you like otters?”
“We used to roast them on a stick,” she
says. “First we’d sell the pelts.”
From her body he feels warmth,
glow, like from a campfire.

“Are you making fun of me?” he asks.
“No. I would marry you.”
Awkwardly he laughs. “Now you’re making fun.”
“No no. I would marry you.”
And it comes to him: You, I,
we could make beautiful babies.

At the campus stop as on a leash
he follows black hair braided like strips of leather,
a tassel like a tail over her butt.
She steps to the crowd. Gone.

A sharp pain in his leg as if
caught in the steel jaws of a trap.
Where did she go? Why is he here?
A river of students part for his island,
splash at his rocks.

……

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig
photo by Christel Sagniez