--- A M Y   H O L M A N

Seedy and era-lost, a sort-of
circus settled one summer
on Avalon's baseball field and
the season's shopkeepers
suddenly had children like me
as the sun set over the crabby
bay. Not that Avalon where
might knights, finally
weightless in their chain
mail and metal mitts, catch fly
balls in the outfield, but a
beach town in a South Jersey
barrier chain with a summer
stage of ice cream parlor
and surf shop. And like these
travelers with voluminous tent
and scratched horse trailer
for paint by number freaks,
two headed snake and mangy
lion, who need believers
to brighten them with longing
and surprise, Avalon unfolds worn
and graceful from the quiet
maroon of winter and spring.
We are visitors double, summer
people at a carny. We are
stunned soft for this eve, drifting
over the diamond into dark
tents like sleepwalkers
to gargantuan, overturned
anemone blooms.