Stinking up the dock
That soils the crisply tightened tacks,
The wafts of opulence across
the endless pass.
And everyone must stand
Gimlet spritz in hand
To endure it — the fish —
Pretend that it belongs,
That it is loved and not
A momentary monster
to recoil from.
There is another scent,
Bologna frying in a cast-iron pot,
The one who doesn't fit
Yet stays there like a ferret
To become the rugged coast,
Dissolving house, the haunted ghost
In time — It is no one else
But the outcasts who cling
To the place where they don't belong.
It means everything to them to fit in
When there is no common ground,
Just that pair of docksiders
That have waited 40 years.
Two legs can only walk.
