CANNED BEANS IN SAN FRANCISCO
I had a dream I lived under a bridge in San Francisco eating canned beans,
toast and tuna, and I drank box wine while the city remained silent.
I had a notebook where I wrote poems with more moons than a Tom Waits song
and I doodled tiny birds with blue beaks and red feathers.
I saw an old lady walking towards me, shaking a cane and yelling.
“What?” I asked
“You asshole, do you have any idea what you're doing?”
She reminded me of a teacher I had
“What year is it?” I asked
She looked at the box wine “The ship is ready” she said
“What ship?”
“The rapture began about an hour ago” she yelled
I stood up and walked closer to the water
“We’re running late because of you” she said
“Is everyone really gone?”
“All gone”
I lifted one foot. It wasn’t a long drop from where I was standing
“It’ll be fine” she said
I remained silent, eyes closed; the sun burning like it did in my childhood.
“You’re not coming, are you?” she asked.
“I don’t think I am”.
I felt the breeze hitting my face and running through the hairs of my forearms
as I disappeared into my own.
Giovanni Mangiante is a bilingual poet from Lima, Peru. His work appears in Open Minds Quarterly, Studi Irlandesi, Three Rooms Press, and more. His bilingual collection POEMS WRITTEN UNDER PERUVIAN WINTERS was published by Book Hub Publishing Group. He lives with his dog, Lucy.