Past midnight
January
1975
26 hours from Boston
Wintah far north__
Florida
Palm Beach
A Golf course
The 17th green
Lay on a white cotton sheet
Fall asleep
Under the palm trees and a full moon
Far from Wintah___
Before dawn
Water on my face
Not rain
A greens sprinkler
To the west night
To the east the dawn
Around me
Flamingoes
Not plastic
Pink flamingoes
On a golf course
On a hot swampy morning
Far from Wintah__
Rub my eyes
Not a dream
Florida
Water everywhere
The Gulf Stream and the Everglades
Sharks Alligators Flamingos
Golf courses on the coastal dry land
Roads crossing the Sea of Grass
Linking
Maine to Okechobee
Everglades City
Palm Beach
Key West
Cape Kennedy__
Tango to Tang to Tampa
St. Pete, Tallahassee
On and on to Panama City
And the Perdido River__
From before the snowbirds
Before the explorers
Before the slavers
Before Dixie Highway
Before A1A
Before 1-95__
Better no one had never come
No French, no Spanish, no English, no Cubans,
No Yankees No Rebs No gringos
Only flamingos, sharks, alligators, deserted beaches and Seminoles
Their Bimini and Pa-hay-Okee, the eternal Sea of Grass__
But not today
January 12, 1975
Me
22 years old
Im in Florida
Grounds men begin the day
A half hour after the dawn
I gather my things
I don't belong here
On the 17th green__
Been in Florida before
April 1971
Easter Week
19 years old
Fort Lauderdale
An apartment across from the Elbow Bar
With three friends
From the South Shore of Boston
Where
Up north
Wintah was in full force
Here
82 in the shade
92 in the sun
Eleven years after 1960
And Tuesday Weld
A teen blonde goddess
No remake of WHERE THE BOYS ARE
Now
Only college girls
From square states and weak Busch beer
Florida 1971__
Today
January 12, 1975
With luck Fort Lauderdale by noon
Only two of three hours away
I walk to the interstate
I-95
Stick out my thumb
An Oldsmobile 88 stops
Tell the driver
“South, I’m going south.”
Him to Miami
Me too
Glad to be in his car
And away from Wintah
At
80 mph
Flying down the flat highway
Flat swamp as far as the eye can see
The Everglades
The Sea of Grass__
Make Miami Beach at noon
Get
A room at the Leslie
Room 201
$15/night
Art Deco colors
Across Collins Avenue
The Gulf Stream
In the lobby
A blind piano tuner
Playing ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT’
I hit the beach
I swim far out
No sharks
Only fishing boats out on the Gulf Stream__
That afternoon at the Club Deuce
I meet an older woman
Wisha
Almost three times my age
23
She gin tonic
Me too
Only doubles
She
Blonde thin not wrinkle on her skin
I inhale
Pond's face cream
Her Fountain of Youth
Along with the Deuce's eternal night__
Sun goes down
Woman and man retire to her apartment
On 35th Street
Windows open to the breeze
Curtains floating from the window
The scent of the sea
In bed
She cries out ‘deeper deeper.’
Like a XXX Tuesday Weld thirty years from now
2005
Then again and again
Sunset to night
And again and again I faked it again__
At dawn
I took a fifty
And walk the Deuce
Open 24/7
Feeling lucky
I win at eight ball
Two Busch beers
Go back to the Leslie
Crash on the bed
To the murmur of morning traffic on Collins Avenue
With
A date to meet Wisha at noon __
Wake up
11:15
A late breakfast
Bacon and eggs
At Wolfies
Break the fifty
Go for a quick plunge
Back to Room 201
Shower
In the torpid lobby
Listen to the blind man play
Something Else
His name Old Bill__
At noon
A sky blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 convertible
At the curb
Wisha slides to the passenger side
"You drive."___
Out to the Everglades
On US 41
Top down
90 mph
Sun banging down
Gators howling in the swamp
The empty road
The highest point for miles
No off roads
No where to stop
No Flamingos
Only gators
A Cadillac convertible and a black-haired woman__
Wisha don’t even know my name
One word
“Here.”
We do it
In the back of the Delta 88
On the shoulder of US 41
Not naked
Jeans half mast
At my knees
Her dress above her waist__
Florida sun so close to the Everglades
"Wisha."
I whisper her name
From the Sea of Grass
Alligators roar like drowning dogs
And Wisha screams
I moan
Faking it again
I love Florida
It ain’t cold
It ain't Boston
It ain't wintah
I’m not staying here
In a week
I’ll headed to California
Santa Barbara
To be with Leslie
23
Same as me
But not until Florida and Wisha are through with me
Later rather than sooner
Naked in a Delta 88
With the gators roaring from the Sea of Grass
And wintah far to the north__
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