that summer, the park ached
with the screams and yips
of kids and dogs loosed
upon it
it was green then,
pool full, moms with sunglasses
kids with flippers and sea monster floats
people burned weenies, took in a breeze,
smiled at each other
with beer foam moustaches
around, in the houses, mamas sang in kitchens—
bread steam, meat-and-potato sear
floated over the baseball diamond
that crawled with those spidery little guys
on St. Helena’s B-Team,
who was beating St. John Francis Regis again—
porches creaked, smoldered with cigars,
a hundred dogs on every block
raised the living and the dead
at each out-of-sync clock chime
anyone who had any money
bought grape pop in a bottle
a pack of luckies, or a snort of whiskey
and life was as good
as it was ever going to get
that summer, in the park,
in the pool, we watched
young mamas and older sisters
cross and uncross their legs,
snap their swimsuit tops
and pull the elastic out from behind
with index fingers
it was before life became knotty,
before the girls got pregnant,
and things went bad with cops
parents, brothers and sisters
and we all got the hell out
that summer was as good
as it was ever going to get
but there was no way to trace the lines
through the waves in the water,
to see the reflections in the sunglasses
