on the boardwalk

the boardwalk 

hasn't changed much in the 

fifty years

i've been going there,

skipping a decade or two

along the way.

the smells are the same.

the salted ocean,

the fried chicken, the meat

on grills,

cotton candy.

how wide the people are,

strolling like balloons, with

cones of cream dripping on

their ruby skin.

the jangle of pinball machines,

barkers at the pawn shops.

all you eat, every ten feet.

it's cleaner, perhaps, less

runaways and homeless,

the cops have taken care of

that. but it's the same.

the same stretch from the ferris

wheel to the pier.

down to the dunes, where

mighty buildings soar

with a view.

the hopeful and the hopeless

all walking as one.