Randall Mann is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Proprietary (Persea Books, 2017). A new collection, A Better Life, is forthcoming from Persea in April 2021. His poems have appeared in the Asian American Literary Review, Lit Hub, Poetry, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and elsewhere. He has lived in San Francisco since 1998.
The Long View
Two lovers sit atop
Dolores Park: they stop
their argument to see
a church, a bridge, a sea.
They play a little game:
each man proceeds to name
his list of lovers, dead.
There’s no one left unsaid.
Anxious pigeons wait
for crumbs to fall. It’s late.
The weather starts to shift:
all fog, all love, will lift.
Randall Mann, “The Long View” from Breakfast with Thom Gunn. Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago Press. Reprinted with the permission of The University of Chicago Press and the author.