WEBVTT

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Many of us, maybe all of
us entertain somewhere

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in our consciousness an image
of a completed relationship,

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completed constellation
of a loving relationship.

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The family is the
core, of course.

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And I came to write
this poem, which

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I realized once I had gotten
deep into it and finished it,

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that it was really a poem about
the desire for that, the desire

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to possess that image,
that however delusional

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it is, the desire to
possess that image.

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The title poem is "White
Blouse White Shirt."

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And it's set in a
particular time.

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It's set at roughly
in the early 1950s

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in Atlantic City on a
boardwalk in Atlantic City

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when Atlantic City was a very
different place what it is now.

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It was a place that
faced the ocean.

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It opened itself to the ocean.

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And it entertained all kinds
of summertime populations,

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from working-class
populations like my own

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to sort of populations who
could come and actually shop

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for fur coats on the boardwalk
of Atlantic City by the sand.

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Unbelievable.

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And one of the things
that sweethearts would do,

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young sweethearts
would do, is they

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would rent one of these chairs
that somebody would push you

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around, one these chairs.

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This is set in a period where
if you pulled into a gas station

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and there's somebody
to fill the tank,

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you'd say "fill it up, chief".

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"White Blouse White Shirt".

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"Snow falls on the
boardwalk where they never

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walked that winter.

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Street lamps in white boas,
surf light patching shuttered

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storefronts, where are they?

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The Ferris wheel they
once rode looks green.

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In this other snapshot,
she wears pedal pushers.

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He's in summer whites.

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They swing cigarettes and
hold hands, walking toward me,

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it seems, into breezy life where
they don't know I'm waiting.

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Now, they're renting
a rolling chair.

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Inside the wicker cow, he says
a five-dollar ride, chief.

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It's Chinese, like Charlie Chan.

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Sand buries the sea noise.

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Rising sands rise from the
boards into deft sea winds

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as they roll past
windows larvaed

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with delftware and sable stalls
licking each other's fingers.

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French fries and paper
cones, when did the boardwalk

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look like that?

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When was that fresh stuff?

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I stencil red winged
blackbirds into the scenes

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and lilac brushing
window panes and crocus,

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one garden of one season
composite where we look out.

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And between them, I become an
hourglass of sand and light

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beside the ocean where
the sun lets more snow

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fall around our heads."

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