3706. LET'S MAKE IT SMALL MONITORS

LET'S MAKE IT 

SMALL MONITORS

(1941)

It's morning again on this auspicious

coastal highway  -  the bright flowers

that have bloomed are back, and once

more that single churchbell peals at the

bottom of Sandy Road. A mile or two

from here, St. John the Mariner, near

where Bruce Springsteen lives; another

direction on a tattered way to home.

-

For me, instead (if no one is watching),

I make it 1941  -  all the waterfront

grief and the dark tenor sax playing

a slow tempo of fast-lined blue jazz.

Where the black men sit, the 

beachfront casino ablaze with riffs 

and rumors and riblad sex:

-

Of comments and innuendos, of

double-meanings and what-I-meants.

Outside the door, as if the very wartime

 world was exploding, the monitors are

watching the sea for German u-boats

and German planes.