Flakowitz in Love

I’m in a movie theater

A white screen-

And so begins

with violins

a Coney Island

dream

The scene is after war

With love in reach –

Trailing shots of

Busy city spots –

Than:

Brooklyn at the

beach

The salt breeze,

The sand, the foam

The waves,

and boardwalk babes

who

tan alone

On the boardwalk:

Fun house mirrors,

Barkers, Drifter shtarkers,

cruising queers –

Everyone is hiding

in the open air.

the cops only make stops

to feel the wind in their hair.

There is a couple

walking, starry-eyed

Brooklyn drifters, romance grifters,

Side by side

The camera zooms in –

He’s close, and whispers discretely,

She’s flattered,

the camera pulls back,

seagulls are scattered,

and she smiles

sweetly

I cringe and sink

Into my seat-

I know these two,

a Bensonhurst and a

Brownsville Jew,

Mad from the heat

I stand and

Yell at the screen

“lady, flee the seduction of the sea –

he’s nothing like he

seems

“This will have a

Sorry end,

with miseries endless

A lonely child , lost and wild –

And completely friendless- “