Their grounds abut a large colonial on Staten Island:
Five or six of them
Swaggering along verdant lawns,
Brick walkways, man-made ponds –
Such bravado. What pretty boys!
Pets of somebody, clearly.
They preen each...
"Spending years of loneliness
sitting on that toilet seat, a haven
from slow lunch times with no friends, I knew the peeling paint
as if it were my own palm, cream cracking, exposing
the avocado green of the seventies."
The undulating sands stretch out,
a vast expanse, sweltering
under the gaze of the sun
as it burns its way across the sky,
dunes flowing like currents,
tides on...