At 7 a.m.

On a quiet stretch of A1A, past the ancient aquarium arch,
Behind the three-story steppe motel,
Pelicans drop kamikaze from their cruising altitude
Into the white-hot light just beyond the breakers,
Falling headfirst in glittering explosions
Into inky schools of fish puddling at the surface.

And the flashbulb glare of the sunrise
Warms skin sensitized by the humid chill
Of night lifting;
The skin of one leaning dangerously towards the breaking morning
From a tiny, sloping concrete balcony,
Just enough for a beach towel and a chair
Propped against a salty screen door perched on squeaky wheels.

The wind, soft and damp, settles on things,
Pushing, pulling, caressing, always touching,
A persistent lover…a possessive feline.

And the wind tunnel white noise roar, ebbing in pulses,
Seeps in the cracks of unsealed windows,
Startling awake senseless sleepers in its sudden absence,
The humid vacuum of an approaching squall
Or afternoon rain, sparkling down in the still visible sunlight,
Steam cooking the sandy pavement,
Watering down the salty pool
That nobody really swims in, just bathes, illegally,
After building hasty sandcastles and hurling kites, futilely,
Into the quiet morning air before the park opens.

Soon the flip-flopped exodus begins, everyone yawning—
The first day is free if you stay, but there’s nothing else to do—
And in through the old wooden entrance,
Just a courtesy, to get a blue hand stamp, soon blurring,
For entrance across the street to the real show.

To be fair, the west side gets its due
With its non-Disney sized distractions—
A 3-D movie, with or without paper glasses,
Short air-conditioned relief and soothing sea colors,
Spilling its visitors out into 10-minute-interval exhibits.
No one waits for the schedule, stepping up to tap on the glass
Of the electric eel’s tank, and study the voltmeter,
Feed the koi with a dime full of fish food,
Shell out 14.95 for a chance at Pick-A-Pearl,
Examining each oyster, divining its chances
Of holding a black pearl, really platinum grey like fog,
Pointing out The One, attendant prying open the shell,
Pushing the palette knife into gummy flesh and popping out the prize…
Cream-colored, of course, perfect for a silver setting
Hung around a sunburnt neck.

Then across A1A, stopping traffic, darting onto the coquina marker:
Marineland, founded 1938.
A fenced flock of flamingoes watches, bored,
Sinking their hooked bills into the pond below.
The east turnstiles give way to black and white gelatins,
Records of eras, trainers and dolphins, stunts and skiers,
Housed on blue tile under the aquarium deck, echoes long past.

Dolphin Stadium always first, creaking bleachers up 20 rows,
Facing a long shallow pool with hoops all blazing in the sun.
To the left the grey dolphin lady, Nellie, aged 50 years, lazes in her private pool,
Perhaps bored, missing her children, but doesn’t seem to, still smiling.

Maybe.

With a flourish the gates open, dolphins darting from covered pools,
Grey and blond—Sunny is Nellie’s baby—leaping to adventure music
Blaring from speakers gone murky with salt-air aging ,
Towing a Benji dog to the Hawaii 5-0 theme song, loving it, squealing.
Lingerers meet them, playing a quiet game of catch with the grinning giant
Offering its head to be patted, wet velvet.

Weary legs trudge up the stairs out the back way, gazing deep
Into the old aquarium, rife with generations-old fish
Fed by a diver in Jules Verne underwater wear.
Veterans know the sea turtles’ names, the number of sawfish,
The length of time around the tank for wrasse,
The coral is real, its bodies replacing sunken steerage.

Top Deck nears, stories deep home of five more dolphins
Mary and Betty, Dazzle and Alvin, and Chubby,
Hurtling themselves up at gasping children and down again,
Cannonballing the clapping crowd, tossing basketballs up, up and over the side,
Squealing and flipping, flying and throwing water to the street below,
Taking particular hilarity in showering passersby, 30 feet down.
A lucky volunteer feeds them a fish, amiably taken from trepidatious fingers.
A rowdy bunch to be sure, moody as children, larger than imagined,
Family trees interconnected and complicated from long lives.

After the show, a broken boardwalk beckons in the dunes.
Penguins cry alongside sea lions from behind the trees,
No one knowing the times of their shows, just waving
As they walk by, filing through the gift store, back to the jungle gyms.
In its heyday, the ropes ran high, knotted in webs up to
Impossibly long slides, pillowed spacewalks, and monkey bars
Where adults followed shrieking children up and down and around
Until the whole party ambled, exhausted, back to the room
To change into one nice outfit for dinner
At the Dolphin Room, all chrome and glass, mahogany and dimmed lights,
Crisp white linen table cloths and seafoam carpet,
A Roger Moore James Bond scene,
East wall all windows on the ocean,
And a grand piano playing magical music begging a dance floor,
When You Wish Upon a Star,
But no one else seems to think so.

Through the windows the sky turns soft,
Periwinkles and purples spreading up from the sea, unveiling stars.
A quiet walk back to the clean room with cotton sheets
And drinks sipped with the screen door open.

I wish I could take you there, then, and pull you
Along the angled, disappearing shoreline,
Climb on coquina boulders with hidden pockets of crabs
And barnacles, waiting for the moon to pull in the tide.
Dance outside the dining room window and wave
So the piano man knows we’re listening.
Rest on your arm in the movie, and whisper my oyster tricks
That never really worked anyway,
Map out the dolphin lineage and
Their favorite leaps, and laugh, doused together,
Show you how to pat the side of the great tank
To summon a flippered friend and a basketball,
And your first big finale, all five flipping at once,
See it all new, by the light of your eyes.
Then wrap up in the cool white sheets of our room
And watch the night seep across the horizon.

But the dolphins moved to other aquariums,
And no one knows their names anymore or where they went.
No note.
A net protects the big tank, no longer crowded,
Quiet nursery for the ones who remain.

The oysters retired to Silver Springs,
And the piano man quit when the Dolphin Room changed hands
that filled it with grey-carpet cubicles.

There is no west side,
Nepune's statue surveying the empty, torn dunes.

One night, love, when sleep is reaching for you,
I’ll murmur it all, lips to your ear, until you can hear
The gulls laughing and feel the sun of morning,
And meet you in the 7 a.m. of our dreams.