We wanted to say goodbye to the world we knew
so we drove the coastline north from Miami
as far as we could go. It was a farewell tour,
sure, but farewell to what? Not the ocean,
looming daily out the right-hand window,
not the water but what the water would erase.
Farewell to Florida, nipped in the bud, cheeky
and self-satisfied as a sun-worshipping infant—
goodbye, little baby Florida, goodbye!
Goodbye to Ocracoke and old Saint Simon,
Virginia Beach and Fire Island, goodbye
to all those literal-minded municipalities—
Surf and Ocean and Atlantic Cities—tossed up
like flotsam along that waterlogged littoral.
Six weeks and thousands of meandering miles later
we found ourselves at a picnic table outside
the Chowder Hut in Meat Cove, Nova Scotia,
where the final stretch of tire-rutted gravel
gives up the ghost: end of the road, folks.
Newfoundland
October 26, 2026
Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry
