“Ft. Misery,” Fla., a poem from Marion Dreyfus

November 12, 2007 |

retail RVs for the leftover retirees

who couldn't climb up to Sanibel Island or Naples

they sun and sweat in the traffic of tourists

both the harijans outside the

gated communities,

sharing with the time-share condo'ers

(yuppies still reaping the yippee!s

of the dot-com mad 90s)

a hop-skip-and- a-jimmie

from the Okeechobee holler and the

south-central swamps;

picture the car paths

that mishmash of minivans and RVs

SUVs and 'wagons, puff-up rafts abrim with

spanky coolers of Kool-Aid and Coors

weary, cranky moms'n'pops, forgetful,

unstrung and weavy between two lanes

their gas caps gosh, a-slosh,

white-and-tan vans

steered by big-haired blue-heads

and teeth-in-a-tumbler octagenamen

pale vestige owlick of the tippy-top sports

dreary steering whee!s

doing the white-knuckle 28 in a 55. . .

or leatherette-tan taut talkers

on their Nokias to their brokas,

swerving 'round the whooshing swooshing

monster semis with their statement roll bars

and pride-of-polish gunracks

workin' off their shifts before they hit

their Gr-8 Bowl-Mor Lounge,

the rough salad of funsters outta the

mud flats doing 89 in a 55

hurling toxic hellmouth out their

roll-downs to the tepid

tourgroups in timid seatbelt aghast,

escapism not the half of it cum

Ft. Miz'ry (nee Myers)

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