Fall River, Massachusetts, late 1950's
With its double green church spires oxidized into this child's horizon
Memories left in graves, freshly dug with offerings of stone.

Rides through long dead avenues
New Bedford salty air, or was it Babes in Toyland?

Pizza shack crowds and soda pop fireworks
The gentle hills of childhood rolling past in sheltered cars
A world untouched by LSD.

Acushnet Beach by moonlight
The brown waters flowing like the Nile.

Fairhaven, down by the bridge
With its grassy meadow forts, guarding nothing but ghosts.

Like Grandfather's store in smiling postcards
My childhood waving goodbye forever.

The landscape of my life
Mattapoisett Bay, in depths of freedom
And Buttonwood Park, running lost amid its trees
Now just a space in my dreams.