PROSE POETRY
ELI COYLE
AFTER THE BEAT MUSEUM IN SAN FRANCISCO
I won’t say much about the bridge, except that it was, almost the color of beetroot. The sun peeking through the comfort of morning fog, sheets over slanted sidewalks twisting Monterey cypress into cliffs. The Beat Museum she said, “Didn’t you want to go there?” Cross the street to City Lights, my face a lighted room, the smell of paper in old books. Fresh bread, fish smells, and fog horns on the waterfront, blending pelicans into opaque sky. Up the Filbert steps to Coit Tower, an afternoon of art in your blue jean jacket. And later, at the BART station, under tunnel, under bay, we miss the fog wash away into rain; lights of the city setting, almost the color of candles. But it’s strange the fondness that finds you in the things you love. That I love the ocean and the groves of eucalyptus flaking bark, the madrones, the bay laurels coloring your eyes—out beyond the waves breaking, the seaweed pulled in to shore, knotted, bound as one entity, thing to thing, eye to eye, staring down decades.
Eli (he/him) received his MA in English from California State University-Chico and is currently a MFA candidate at the University of Nevada-Reno. His poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in: Barely South Review, California Quarterly, New York Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, and more.