Tuesday, September 9, 2014

New poem: GALVESTON 1966

everything's big when you're small:
the Jack Tar Motor Hotel restaurant
with the window view onto the swimming pool
Stewart Beach where my grandfather
and I took a rented float
out onto the waves
and I swallowed salt water
for the first time
and spit it out fast
the apocalyptic argument
my older brother had
with everyone else in the car
because he was forced to vacation
with the rest of the family
at the age of sixteen
instead of seeing his girlfriend back home
and, on the beach,
my dad pointed to
the pillbox installed
to protect the island
during World War II

all over the outside
of the pillbox
one could see
the words SENIORS 67
and GHS
spray-painted in red and black

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