69

the boardwalk
wasn't always this way.
clean
and swept.
the stores aglow
with
what to buy.
there wasn't always
strollers
and families.
it was a different time.
the runaways,
the drugs,
the collection
of miscreants who
hitchhiked there
from everywhere to
sleep on the sand,
to ask for spare change.
to beg
and borrow their
way through
a weekend.
it wasn't always so
proper
and refined.
the Hilton, the Sheraton.
we'd stay at the Broadmore
on Pacific
and Vine
for two dollars and
fifty cents
a night.
a bare mattress,
a bulb overhead,
the window propped open
with a stick, but it
was fine.