Through Sutro Park Darkly by Janice Bressler

The parking lot sign says we’re in a smash and grab zone.

At the park gate, two lions, stone cold.

The fog is a voiceover in a strange language

for a movie I’ve seen many times before.

Even though he’s off-leash, Joey stays close.

I miss seeing Clay here, his shopping cart, his dog

Magic, his Karl Marx beard.  Someone told me he froze

 to death curled up on cardboard in front of the Safeway.

No one knows what happened to Magic.

Walking toward us, two gray-haired women arm-in-arm,

one of them nodding  Da, da.

Dada, my father signed his letters

to me, gentleness so unlike him it startles me now.

As we round the path to the park’s west end,

I stop to look down at Ocean Beach.

I can hear the cars on the Great Highway,

I can hear the surf.

Someone on the sand near the Cliff House,

a tiny figure on the long stretch of beach,

like the Japanese woodblock print

my father left me,

is writing something in the sand

but I can’t make out what it says.