Long and white, prone to blowing
like a whale’s salty plume
it’s the first thing you notice:
his panache, his dare
his disguise. And then the eyes
a quiet blue, behind glass.
Often a cap, worn snug
the bill throwing shade.
As if he exists
in a cool room
looking through a picture
window, beyond an awning’s
shadow, to a sun-blasted view.
Pete, who is commonly known
and unknown, who is sought
after and left alone. Pete
the painter and renovator
the history nerd and story-teller.
Cool Pete, who was once
beardless, who was
and always will be
a teen-aged biker, pumping
all three speeds down Rte. 6
toward Provincetown
hot pink, plum and pea green
streaking his periphery
as he rushes headlong
to the end of the land
to the cleft in the dunes
to the horizon line
to the point of becoming.
Lili Flanders, a retired teacher, lives in Truro and is vice chair of the Truro Climate Action Committee. Her poetry, nonfiction, and flash fiction have appeared in literary journals and anthologies.
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