After salt air and French fries at Stillwell and Surf, I sent
you a goofy photo, my mouth hotdog-full, grinning
in a crowd among the clamoring signs at Nathan’s Famous.
Over three bucks for what cost you a nickel. Like you,
Coney Island isn’t what it was.
Memory abides in a breath-held rush down the steep watery
slide of Luna Park’s Shoot-the-Chutes, then darts through
a chaos of bodies, clashing calliopes and flashing colored
lights to the exit where girl-clasping soldiers gladly toss
tickets to a kid starved for speed and wind.
Today people still watch people while strolling the magic-
carpet planks along that remnant honky-tonk of whirring
rides, clam shacks and yammering barkers. But the idle
parachute jump looms like a lonely Eiffel
and apartment towers conceal elation’s ghosts at Luna.
Wheezing with emphysema in a world contracting
to a Parkinson quake, you know exactly what you’ve lost
and where you left it. Those distorted mirrors, rollercoasters
and ducks in a row you couldn’t hit now seem life’s true
apprenticeship. All you ever wanted was one last ride.
