Tiny birds gossip in the trees. They’re catching up after having not spoken for a while. They have a lot to say. Where the sun hits the patio table, frost melts to a black sheen. Soon the shingled roofs will follow suit.  Pink arrowhead buds swell and bloom on the Christmas cactus.

The morning sun doesn’t look like a dentist’s waiting room. The clouds don’t have the drill torque sound of tires being rotated. The power lines running to the house don’t feel like laundry pulled warm from the dryer and the muddy drive smells nothing like the coffee aisle in the grocery store.

Early morning traffic pulses to and from through arteries and veins and across the bridges. Red lights, white lights flow. Mirrored buildings glisten like silver crystals jutting up from the city floor. From the plane, local topography is visible, lowland neighborhoods and the spired center. Large ships sleep in dockyard holding cells.

Sunshine skies drench sidewalks. The man behind the counter at the café smiles hello. He chats up his regulars. I walk. I walk. Already, it’s too warm for my east coast coat. They’re cutting the grass along The Embarcadero and the lines at the bread shops at Ferry Plaza stand six deep.

Large sea lion bodies with velvety skin laze in the sun on the floating pier. Interlopers nudge and jostle for space. Some bark. Others snort. There are other piers. Warm sun hits them just as fine. These spaces seem coveted. The squeezing in, the snuggling up, the coziness of sharing the bed.

We sat outside in wooden chairs at a small, green, metal table. We shared a lemon cake which she cut into nine bite-sized pieces. She sipped a cappuccino with cardamom. I drank a regular coffee. Facing twenty-fourth street, half-way between Mission and Valencia, the sun warmed our faces. The palm trees swayed.

At the rainy-day corner cafe, morning passes buttoned up with a jacket hood pulled down. Red brick walls and large shop windows – foreign, familiar, and idyllic. This could be the Parisian bistro I’ve never visited with the graceful company I do not keep. I am here and somewhere else  – intimately alone, dreaming.

I heard her crying. I didn’t look back – the woman leaning on green, metal postal relay box at the corner of Post and Powell. There might have been a police officer there too. She’s one of the many homeless that we don’t look at. Pants half-way down and crying. We don’t look.