Beyond Wealth
On the deserted boardwalk
at Coney Island,
just before a storm roared in,
gray-black clouds peeked
over the Ferris Wheel—
waves strained the imagination.
On our Sunday holidays,
my dad would eat
clams on the half shell.
He seemed so delighted
by his little routine—
lemon, hot sauce, slurp.
The rest of us
would stuff ourselves
on Nathan’s Famous hot dogs—
the best in the world.
Later we’d sit on the beach
with a thousand others
and bake.
How mom and dad loved
that they owned the sun
and the sand.
They’d never owned
anything as majestic.
Dad called
the subway home from the beach
the Calamine Express—
filled with working stiffs
heading home
for Sunday dinner,
sun-burnt children in tow.
Some would swell the colleges.
Some would patrol the rice paddies.
Some still remember
the sun and the sand.
*
Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. Steve was nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times and once for Best of the Net. He has published six volumes of poetry. Brooklyn was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press. A new full length, Seven Mountains, was recently published.
Beautiful and non pretentious poem