Erasure

from Lydia's Island

Maine plates
side street
the barnacle pier.
cheap t-shirts, silver charms.
shapeless dresses dangling.
seafood,
art deco,
outdoor equipment
the record store.
tourists swarming
heavy ice cream cones,
a toddler crying over a scoop on pavement.
the smell of hot fudge and the promise
of lobster ice cream.
the people.
a woman wearing thick gold bracelets smooths her big styled hair with her palms.
Man in whale-patterned chinos hustles his wife along
to dinner reservations.
College kids, black flip flops, winding bikes through the slow traffic.
The girls, rail thin, muscled and tanned, hair long and silky or short and cute
buy the first hemp jewelry of the season.
By summer's end it will fall off their wrists
and necks
Sunlight on fountain
and ocean.

Reading Terminal

Tiny orange fish eggs on a five dollar bill, my change from the sushi man.

I look at lobsters in a tank and think, they're from Maine.

The woman at the piano plays a Nutcracker waltz in July.

low

Sun on Cira.
Twin reflections in river, rose-gold.
Spraypaint on sidewalk:
Never 4get my death.
Runner, hands raised like a prophet,
warding off cramps.

If I just knew where home was.
A baby in a stroller with old eyes.
"I know," the eyes say, but they offer
no comfort.

Breeze at a hot day's end.
Not cool, but movement.
I can hear it in the trees behind me,
but the traffic is louder.