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the greeks roots of nostalgia are
(nóstos)homecoming and (álgos)ache.

it’s associated with a yearning
for the past, its personalities,
possibilities, and events.

a dull pain tethered
to the aperture between
memory and dreams.

when it rains i see us
christmas shopping on fourth street.
i am nine years old,
the car heater too hot,
and smeared street light colours
hint you’re keeping us safe.

i can still taste the fog
waiting on the n judah trolly
on the outskirts of the richmond,
hungover, on the way to the short-story class
with the young professor who got your work
and encouraged you to keep going despite your
lack of talent, focus or skill
and then the post-modernists-
wonder what barth would sound like tonight:
how were you supposed to understand
giles the goat boy on two hours of sleep?

we’re working at the sandwich spot in
strawberry at the base of tiburon,
the old lady regular on her third glass of house red
two hours of the shift to go-
they’re at home drinking stouts watching
stupid sitcoms to distract from the boredom
of a slow week night in a small town off a highway.

the present never feels glamorous without
a sheen of the black bile. (melaina chole)
melancholia- the mother of the four humors.

missing california
tangled in a web
of etymology:

calafia the fictional queen
of the island of california
was a pagan warrior queen
ruling over a kingdom of black women.

but these are the stories of colonisers.
what of the people?
what of the miwok?
what of their black bile?
what of their ache and homecoming?

i can see the one-oh-one flowing like an open vein
bleeding traffic from mount tamalpais,
the bay to the west the ocean somewhere
beyond that. how foolish are we?
to believe that words and names and language
are adequate devices to capture
concepts like home.