Breathing Poetry

Written by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder
She currently lives in Ohio, USA,
but, is in the process of moving to Durham, North Carolina
Her blog: The Buffaloe Pen

We Leave The Beaches For Tourists

Let them have the new white path.
We’ll keep our old black road.
We’ll keep the marshes, the bays,
the clam loved mud, the scaly
smell of fish house sweat.

We’ll keep the hard blue hands
of net menders, carvers, pickers,
oystermen, crab pot makers.
We’ll keep little wooden boats
churning foam, the musk of nets
hanging with vines in front yards.
We’ll keep the grit in our teeth,
the red bent backs of generations.

We leave the beaches for them,
the growing rows of condos,
swift internet access, dry stack
marinas, three story malls.

We’ll keep the slow turn of fans
in the heat, mosquitos, the creak
of sticky wooden floors, stepping
in the sweet shit of wild horses,
pickled smells of general stores,
old fishermen who sit on benches
and tell outrageous stories.

Let them have country clubs,
golf courses, famous actors,
casinos, beachside showers.
We’ll keep green garden hoses
and a beacon that opens and closes
its bright midnight eye.

We’ll keep sharp September stars
and the soft secrets of girls
growing up on salt water.

Let them have all that.
We’ll keep all this.
But all that keeps
moving closer to
our old black road.
How quickly
it all erodes.

Originally published on writer's personal blog.
Posted with consent of the writer.