To see their words. Then still another looks
My way as I get in my car, to say
"Yer a good runner!" I, startled: "Nah." -- "I've seen
You often ..." drifts through the gloom as she goes her way.
Beside her friend, a radio in between.
No babies. Not a six-pack to be seen,
Even gulls are scarce (no garbage). Far away
Is the big brown belly July puts on display.
-- Two lovers, and one walker, dark and lean,
And two runners, are strung out on the clean
Smooth beach ahead, with the light a misty gray
Coming from nowhere and everywhere alike.
A good place for a passion to be worked out
Or up. Near here last night my young friend Mike
Whose wife left him and took their child, did not
See me run by, his eyes so fi xed on a pair
Of beauties running by with streaming hair
(Eyes that have been in training on Vermeer).
High tide, and I'll be driven off the sand
Onto the rocks. I should have calmly planned
My run, by the tide-chart, but old drip-nose
Reading his Homer troubled my repose,