Mornings with the Fishermen. Keeley's Wharf. Rte 137
I have become one of those old men
whose hoary hair from the burns
curls up like white fire, practically
dragging his heart behind him
on the knuckled road. They stack
crabpots and ice chests and crush
cigarette butts under their boots.
As if they last forever
in their forty year old skeleton.
Workaday is done and the trucks depart,
for bars and coolers,
and fat sandwiches like fists
passed on on greasy cheap paper plates.
And sunset foams into night,
and pours into early morning.
As if we grow old
and spend all our luck chasing what love
felt like when we were 16, and still
knew no responsibility to anything beyond
our own appetites.
As if we turn, one day
to find our reflection a little too familar,
our time unkindly spent, and unwise.
