1

Returning to their home town after 25 years

was surreal. They got lost trying to get to

the high school. The ice cream stand they worked in

was now a dry cleaners, while Old Smith’s Farm

was gone altogether.

 

2

Looking at the photos posted by George

the old swimming hole back home is now a fancy

water park with diving platforms and a wave pool

and roller coaster slides such a blight on that old

small town charm and I think I’m going to cry.

 

3

Contrasting today’s summer of yardwork

house repairs, car troubles and no money

with his youthful summers of dating, swimming

ice cream stands and summer stock theatre makes him sad

with longing and knowing you can never go home again.

 

Michael Estabrook

Michael Estabrook is retired. No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms, able instead to focus on making better poems when he’s not, of course, endeavoring to satisfy his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.

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