Dolores Park Poem by Randall Mann

The palms
are psalms.

The nail salons,
manicured lawns.

This is some phase.
The park has been razed.

I miss the hip,
hours at a clip,

their dopey glazed
Dolores haze

(sorry).
I worry

about basic stuff:
my graying scruff,

Ambien addiction.
Eviction ...

— But there's another story:
this site was once a cemetery.

In 1888,
the late

were stirred,
disinterred,

carted somewhere calm, a
nothing place called Colma.

By then the dead
prohibited

in city light.
They thought this was all right:

the dead have nothing to lose;
the dead were Jews.

Hills of Eternity, Home of Peace:
the dead were put in their place.