A Birth

6:31 p.m., southeast corner of McAllister and Polk: A homeless reportee found a bloody, one-hour-old infant.... He took the newborn to ... afire alarm box [pulling the leverl for help. Police located the possible scene of childbirth ... and followed a blood trail finding the baby's mother, who was homeless, lying in some bushes. The suspect was booked.

—The City Voice Police Blotter

In front of City Hall, a block from the Board of Health,
just after rush hour, before the sun had set,
at the spot where the number five bus
picks up passengers every ten minutes,
down the street from the federal building,
across the plaza from the library,
above the underground parking lot,
long before fog drenched the bushes,

two blocks from Symphony Hall where Ozawa
was expected to arrive at any minute,
not far from the retrofitted freeway,
at the hour when waitresses were lighting candles
and lights in apartment towers flickered on,
six miles from the San Andreas Fault,
four miles from an ocean,
near the end of the century,
on the other side of the globe from Bethlehem.

 

Poems by Sharon Fain: