Beach Towns we Have Loved and Lost

Ocean towns used to be
places with cottages and gramas who gave a basket
for blackberries to make a dinner pie.
 Children knew the sand for hours, forgeting time
television was somewhere else, too many rocks and sticks and shells to find
Even in places where the waves were always cold, the children and their families played
And slept 3 or 4 to a room, on floors, and never wished for more.

Here, another over loved beach reveals itself each day..
Red lights ring a palm tree painted white at the base to
deter insectos or rats and everywhere bacteria unseen
my arm announcing something with red flares.

The beggar women come along, approaching each table
of beer drinkers and gringos to sell
earthquake detectors, made in China, in some other sadness
Their children on their backs or tagging along, carrying their own basket of trinkets
The children are so tough here, so wise, so uncomplaining

The night warms as a firelit room in the north
the air soft, lights on the hills denote the mansions of the rich
whose faces one will not see on these streets.
Whose money buys the hill, the water, whose sewage still flows into the bay.

They looked to be redeemed, The Shawshank men, here in this
quiet fishing village, and that was then.
The sun still shines, the waves still break,
as they do where the cannon washed up so far
North of here, and my girl self was the prisoner of school,
who loved the beach like a mother.