After Columbus Day

through James Wright

Autumn begins in Berkeley, California
Not at all. At the Codornices Park rose garden
I picture the crew of the San Carlos
Sunset-ushered through the Golden Gate,
And the burnished faces of Ohlone tribespeople
Discovering that landmaking.

All the ashamed of history now call this bay home.
Critical rhetoric pitched like an occupation,
Grinding for purchase.

Even so,
The sunlight beams carcinogenically beautiful
At the beginning of October,
To fall in protest with this wealth against ourselves.

Evan Klavon was born and raised in Fresno, California. He then spent seven years on the East Coast and abroad, before returning West to Seattle, where he attended the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. His poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming at Ink Node, Linebreak, and Circumference. Having returned to California after a decade, he is now a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley and lives in Oakland.