Abandoned Youth Camp

the planes fly well overhead now & couples no longer dawdle down by the jetty where an old dinghy rises & falls on the fluke waves of passing powerboats ... & now cicadas chorale across an empty bay old pipes protrude from the muddy shallows & the trees though blooming still billow untended & unloved (though the summer & this giant cross remain drifters are its only pilgrims - snorkellers scan the basin for discarded bikinis or martini glasses (the old wreck of a hotel still hopes for a reunion with its past loves the storms at sunset or the mock evacuations - shells bursting underfoot as the guys with their miniature five string ukeleles serenade two lovers demolishing a lobster - all gone to the great fairground in the sky now packed up like crates of beer bottles shipped off to another island another beachside retreat for nuns with cystic fibrosis ... now i hear the choppers swing low coming in for their daily sightseeing pass - dissecting sea mist like it's cold cabbage inspecting our abandoned futures like so many sad real estate agents