April First, Tall Decaf, Newburyport Waterfront

 Pedestrians along the sun-filled wharf
 will sit astride the railing by the water
 ordering a draft, sipping it slowly
 while they tell the philosophic river
 stories from dry land, about the roads
 that drove them to this moment and the hills
 they'd love to stand on. As they gaze towards reddish
 reflections upon the facing shore, past rows
 of dry-docked sailboats and their whiskey-colored
 dories, their conversation drifts downstream.
 And there the current and a cloudless sky
 converge to draw a line that lifts the far
 ends of two sand bars, where deep blue-eyed seas
 lure them to islands beneath the greenest palm trees.



copyright 1999 Greg Perry