San Francisco wraps me up with hot pumice breath and does not let go. She follows me with a sincerity that I cannot shake, offering the fruits of her cacophony as the throaty rumbling of cable cars, as the muted quarreling of European travelers, blue eyed children in tow, as azalea sunbursts lining the steps I jog each afternoon. She orchestrates the movements of ten thousand bicyclists. She punctuates the skies with glass ornaments and fighter-jet jewels. and lures in her prey with the offerings of raven gold parlayed over her streets. She charms me over then just as quickly, she turns

cold; suddenly I am colored frigid by blasts of air conditioning from cavernous parking garages, blown to and fro through alleyways. Her eyes darken by murky sea gales, and nighttime cools her zeal.