the streets and alleys, minus the motels and the three rollercoasters, minus the jetty and the lighthouse and the catamarans lined upside down on the sand, minus the evening’s surfers, the young women with their dogs, street poets, booksellers, guitars and glass jars stuffed with old dollars, minus pizza toppings, car keys, small lamps burning in windows, minus the fathers calling time to come in

and minus even this wharf where people sit with their fried clams and slices of lemon, where people fall into the sea as you draw in reverse dismantling the boards, erasing all but landscape and a pod of sea lions arcing in for the night and a few gray gulls flying toward the mountains off to the left; all that was before anyone ordered decaf for two or touched another’s face with a hand small as rain

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Jeanie Tomasko is the author of a few poetry books, most recently (Prologue), the recipient of an Editor’s Choice award from Concrete Wolf Chapbook Series, and Violet Hours (Taraxia Press), a collection of the antics of a unique little girl. She can be found on her website (jeanietomasko.com), walking around somewhere near Lake Superior with her husband, Steve, or enjoying the antics of her cats at home, where she endeavors to always have a bottomless honey jar, garlic from the garden and bees in the front yard hyssop.