The perfect end-of-summer poem is Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s The Pershing Hotel—which ran recently at Every Day Poems. At the beginning of the poem, which recounts a childhood memory of going to the Jersey shore in summer, it says…
The rooming house was exotic to us.
Your Pour
Get your favorite steep (or brew) and join us in writing a poem that explores in detail something that was exotic to you but potentially not to others. You can base it on a childhood memory, like O’Donnell does. Or not. Your pour!
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Maureen says
Summers at the Jersey Shore
The rooming house was exotic to us.
From its porch, we could cast ourselves
right into the sea, Mother all the time on
close watch, as if rescue-ready.
That house had 10 bedrooms alone,
their walls a mix of cracked paper, peeling
paint, and Jack-and-Jill bathrooms, meaning
shared. I kept my side locked at night.
Morning came, breakfast already made
by a cook we never saw: eggs, bacon,
sausage, the works. I got to taste coffee
for the first time; always opted for juice after.
Summer was high season in Jersey. Crowds
a bother on Labor Day. We never minded.
Come nightfall, the porch lanterns glowing,
we’d gather ourselves up to shoot the breeze.
L.L. Barkat says
Oh, you’ve been to the Jersey shore, too! 🙂 Loving those porch lanterns.