august. Montauk. the 50s

tenement summers, oh-

remember the pretty italian girls

down by the beach, how the sun

would get tangled in their dark hair,

shining-diamond sprigs of water

lost beneath the fallen curls

the sand came burning by august

time, and they city threw out its heat

shadow, stretching the finger-length

spine of longisland. the girls, their

tough-talking boyfriends, all the

negative space of new york expanding

a singularity of season

here in the carnival heart of summer

he watched them come driving out

along the broken highways, the

host smell of their exhaust wrapping

stakes of presence outside his open

window.

he stood at the ocean side, where the

gulls wheeled their rusty circles and

the small princes of manhattan showed

their pale pale skin the to roaring furnace of sun