The Ocean Continues
“I am surprised the ocean still continues.” -Anne Sexton
I too am surprised.
So much of the Island remains intact
while the Bali Hai degrades in the midst
of a parking lot full of weeds and tiny umbrellas,
and Howard Johnson’s is out of fried clams,
Black Russians reduced to chocolate sodas.
Small seafaring villages that thrived, fade,
wash up on shore again with organic trinkets
for a new generation of weekend sailors.
A flavor in the air has nothing to do with salt or fish,
inedible clams blooming in the once Great South Bay.
It is the lack of mountains that slants it all just so
despite several iterations of pavement,
prefab houses replacing postwar ticky-tacky.
Castles for the wealthy, Section 8 for
those who missed the genetic boat,
whose ancestors never moved far from
a cabin in the woods, whose
Wi-Fi reaches no further than
the outskirts of Montauk.
Bionote
Cheryl A. Rice’s poems have appeared in Home Planet News, Misfit Magazine, and Trailer Park Quarterly, among others. Recent books include Love’s Compass (Kung Fu Treachery Press), and Until the Words Came (Post Traumatic Press), coauthored with Guy Reed. Her blog is at: http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com/. Rice lives in New York’s Hudson Valley."
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