San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Barbara Austin

No Lament for The Departed

 

The tourists have gone home,
leaving Dairy Queen, shuttered:
to keep company the pale winter sun.
Languishing.
Sea air takes her queue:
divest of human particles,
dressing in her palest blue.
 
White and black quilt throbs: dense,
drumming wind,
undulating: speckled pattern visible:
swoosh, the gulls are home.
 
Battalions of white plastic bags
guard the beach.
Gulls stab at memories of meals,
bits of colour,
carelessly discarded
by the tourists who have gone home.
 
Errant signs mimicking spring
shoot up, announcing  vacancies.
Leaving locals to reassemble on front porches,
joining crickets, to harmonize in winters rhythm.
 
Only the Post Office remains unchanged.
Local stores offer familiar faces
bearing genuine smiles:
their summer inventory  occupying garages
of the tourists at home.
                                      So,
along with the dreary snapshots
interchangeable with every other year;
watery Margaritas
more diluted than last,
the tourists have a surprise.
 
No oohs, no aahs.
No resurrection.
Gentle dignity of the head
belonging to
the once graceful body
of a young female deer.