Waiting For Bolivar Ferry
We wait our turn
on a weekend
when tourists and teens
converge
on the peninsula
to stretch their skin
in the sun: engines off,
windows down,
radios up,
as if the beat
proclaims
some inner rhythm
of parched hearts.
A sheen of boys
begins to volley
for attention, girls
in open truckbeds
cake makeup,
spray hair
already starched
with heat.
The shoreline
brings the sleaze
out of everyone,
the steam
that shimmies up
from the concrete,
the stick, the sweat,
the hidden grit
that slicks
to the surface.
We are waiting
for Bolivar Ferry.
When it docks
we’ll all pull forward
in tight metal rows
onto the boat
that will slick us
like plastic
six-pack scrap
across the sea.
mareymercy. 
Reminds me of the Beat poets.
I hadn’t thought of that, but I was trying to capture an immediate moment & really not saying much of anything else. Probably this was one of those “I don’t have much to say today” poems that somehow worked out anyway. 🙂
Terrific. Definitely at a professional level! Love “to stretch their skin” and “plastic six-pack scap across the sea.”
The placement of “We are waiting for Bolivar Ferry.” You have an incredible sense of balance in some of your poems, this one being a great example!
Thanks – I never thought of having balance before, but perhaps my sense of the visual contributes to that.
Man, “parched hearts” really captures that whole era.
Yep! And I haven’t been down there in YEARS.
Woohoo! that is so good.
Pamela
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