The Pride of Bayside

the sun went green

under endless Texas skies

never knowing I existed

until it awoke inside me

the switchgrass danced

as I fed the mosquitoes

the bay sagged and swelled

but the mansion

stood, full of itself, at its shore

thin panes rattling

in a hurricane’s leftovers

and outside

black dogs policed in packs, overseeing

cracked asphalt, broken piers

the footless journey of the snake

and an eyehook still hung

where the lawyer’s

sex swing once swung

or so the story goes

just ask the neighborhood kids

now full grown with a few of their own

see what they can remember

see what they can’t forget

By Walker Rose