I keep my high beams flicked on.
They throw their yellow onto the face
of the soggy, hanging cotton stepping in front of me
And although it’s blocking my view
at least I can see it in detail.

And after the grille parts the fog,
the V6 breaststroke rattling,
I am driving through the town we love to hate.
I’m thinking how narrow it can get, this
road of slimy mirrors, watched by darkened
store fronts, whose eyelids droop.

Strings of disembodied white lights
slither through dead and naked branches -
Trying in vain to offer some holiday spirit
to the oldest summer resort in America.

I’ve driven this road a thousand times
but never reminisced like this -
back to the days of humidity -
the smell of puberty and the taste of you.
How you would toy with the tourist boys,
until they pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
The days I still worshiped you,
When we didn’t mind that the only thing
to do was get ice cream and drag our toes through
the oily water below the end of the dock.
I don’t even like ice cream.

That was the plastic summer,
During which if anyone had told me I’d be here
in this pocket of time and space
and rain and bleeding light,
I’d have turned on my heel
and walked swiftly away.