Spring Break V - Russians On Miami Beach

I. The Fish Crow is an outcast amongst the seagulls Standing on the hot Miami sand At the end Of our rose-colored beach towel Nodding and blabbing half-heartedly Nuh-uh nuh-uh To the lack of crumbs From us The stingy blue collar visitors From freezing old gray Michigan We’re so out of place Down here As pale as if we were skinless Wandering like ghosts among this feast Of color and food fashion and language I understand Why they’d never think to turn a wrench Twist a screw Move a pile of snow from one end Of a chain restaurant’s parking lot to another A hundred times a winter Like we do Up there Wrapped in our coats and hats Complaining from Applebee’s at the end of dinner It was pretty good, but too expensive Fish Crows nodding Nuh-uh nuh-uh. II. But back to the here and now An old plump woman In a fabulously glittered one piece bathing suit And a floppy hat that said Bought in Paris Stopped my wife and I Freshly fished from the waves of the Atlantic Like sea creatures Salted and seasoned proper She said with a heavy Russian accent “Oh hello! Where are you from?” “Michigan.” “No, I mean, were you born in America?” “Yes. Um, Lansing, Michigan.” “I see. I was born in the Soviet Union Left it in 1973 Never went back no I never did.” “May I ask?” She hesitated “Who you voted for?” Here we go. “Biden.” “Oh no, oh no, you Americans have no idea What it is To live in the nightmare of a socialist country. President Trump understands that. It’s just like this farce of global warming. Transfer of wealth is all that is. Transfer of wealth.” She tsk tsked us some more But was nice enough about it all I suppose because I was smiling and nearly nude Standing and drying next to my dripping wet wife Nudging me to move on So really what threat could we be To her gold and jewels? But I took the bait and said “I don’t agree with you at all. See all this?” As I swept my hand to the beachfront cathedrals Carved from the sky Steel and glass and silver waterfalls Suspecting that she probably lived Within one of these shadow dominoes Toppling across the sundrenched beach Each mid-afternoon “This will be sunk and gone in 40 years And the sun and sea will have its rightful place back.” “What? Oh my my no no.” Her old face squeezed like a lemon to her lips. “Ridiculous. You socialists. I live on the 39th floor And I’ve watched this same beautiful ocean With its fish and sharks Big sharks if people only knew Darting like shadows not so far from them The swimming men That’s what I see from up there. “But despite the danger There’s been no changing since 1996 When that building opened and we moved in A good solid building, my building, Not like this one, cheap construction.” She hissed pointing to one and then the other. I’m stupid So it was quite a bit later when I realized Since we were standing in front of the “cheap” building That maybe this was her zinger of an insult Returned back to me Thinking we actually lived there. In fact, perhaps, that’s what started this whole thing To begin with? A quarrel among new neighbors? Her obligation to draw an early line in the sand? Pff. We were just renting there for a week! Joke’s on her, the old Russian nag. III. But anyway I looked up to where she first was pointing. The white clouds were leaping from the penthouses Like angelic hang gliders racing Wings spreading In a strong southerly gale up the shoreline Just above the rooftops of the 40 story towers Filled with the super-rich and the very sour And I was overtaken with a vertigo sensation That these marble pillars Were perpetually tipping over Sideways On top of us. We bid one another adieu And went our separate ways. Returning to our towels laid on the sand I thought maybe After all I could spare A few crumbs from a leftover bagel For that little bird Reciting his nuh-uh poetry To our bare feet and wiggling toes.