Sag Harbor Summers

A historic sepia-toned photo of the Beach in Sag Harbor showing two older women sitting in the water at the shoreline, a young boy running in the water, and three other figures wading. Photo courtesy of Donnamarie Barnes.

Lucky were we
Who began metamorphosis by way of expressways
Breaking concrete cocoons,
                                                            spreading adolescent appendages;
wiggling toes at earth’s edge.

Bleached sand speckled with almonds/cocoa/pecans
playing R & B version of “Beach Blanket Bingo”
among low melanin mortals;
Spreading Coppertone
like double stuff Oreos flipped inside out.
We worshiped Ra as if we were exempt from melanoma.

Darker hue of the Hampton venue
The not seen but be seen
imitations of white gone Technicolor
in summer surf and sand.

Fresh air fund for the franchised
Our gangs were called cliques with midnight curfews.
signs posted:  “Private Property”
didn’t refer to our
Private schools
                                  Private communities
                                                                                    Private lives.

But we didn’t care about the “Talented Tenth”
only our tube top tits
Dr. Scholl’s flip-flop feet
twitching Jordash behinds.

We were the have
                                    among the have less
Hoping to have more
                                    than we ever had before.

Segregation was what we did with our meat and vegetables;
Our plate always full –
the world our oyster
                                                we ate crunching on the pearl.
Entrees of Career du jour
Salads mixed with ivy
                                                dressed with parental procurements.

We smoked under quixotic trees,
drank with Chevis and a Black Johnny Walker
played in snow in the middle of July.

We were the dream Martin had on that mountain top
We climbed with no safety line
with homogenized illusions of
the top of the corporate ladder
                                                            to the cookie jar.
Some made it half way
                                    some hit the ceiling,
                                                            some only collected the crumbs.

But lucky were we
who had Sag Harbor Summers:
Bombastic Bourgeois brown beings
Negro Neros
playing our violins
While Rome burned a hundred miles away.

- © Lora René Tucker
Lora René Tucker is Brooklyn born and educated and now lives in Sag Harbor, NY.  Since 1992, Lora has read and been featured throughout New York and Long Island; published her first book: “Writes of Passage,” has a blog on POZ online magazine and offers poetry therapy workshops as the Therapeutic Poet.  Her “nine to fives” were an interior designer, drug counselor, social worker and psychotherapist.  She’s now a writer until further notice.