Summer evenings the aging couples
left supper dishes and snowy TVs to stroll
the sweet smelling slats of the boardwalk
where the ocean swelled like an inhaling belly
or rose to smash down froth depending
on its mood. Elsewhere,
(and elsewhere could be walked to)
were boarded buildings,
rumored drive-bys, white flight.
But here, on this street that touched
the water, small peninsula within the larger,
the doors were still unlocked.