The palm trees bask in the sulfur street light. Mark Benioff's tower lords over the cold land-filled marshes of San Francisco, topped with a 50-foot screen lit with the faces of beautiful women praising his cloud software to the clouds. I work in its shadow, one of the workers hunched in stacked honeycombs extruding strips of text, digesting customer data into its purest, liquid form. But here, away from the office, walking over the damp yellow-lit grass in the empty park, I am no longer alienated from my labor. My wife texts me to ask where I am. The moon hangs down from its shadow to light my way home. As I walk past the closed shops the night workers are unlocking them, walking in with their buckets and mops. The ones who prune the trees are already standing on ladders, their heads disappearing into the leaves.
Pattabi Seshadri's poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, American Letters & Commentary, and other journals. He is an American of mixed (Indian and Jewish) heritage who grew up in Texas. He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.
