In Search of the Lost Indian Princes

As the sun goes down

on the sput-sput of lawn sprinklers

in St. Pete, the long shush

and dull clink of shuffleboard ceases.

 

The mammoth white-stucco hotels

begin to glow in the dusk

with a kind of vacant dignity.

I can feel foundations settling

 

those critical inches toward sea level,

window sills crumbling, moist

and soft as angel-food cake.

Ah, the insidious leisure of decay!

 

I’m driving a rented car

down palm-lined boulevards.

The traffic signals bob with wind

off the bay, their Christmas colors sad

 

and directing no one, surely not me.

After blocks of derelict sidewalk,

faded life-vests dangling askew

in murky storefronts,

 

I pull to a light beside

the Arthur Murray School of Dance,

the whole corner a wedge of light

sealed in plate glass.

 

The floor sways with gray-haired couples

holding each other with ease

and affection, turning in sure slowness

to a music I can’t hear.

 

Suspended among lurking

and disinterested facades,

they drift in an other-worldly glow.

The light goes green.

 

Ahead, the road extends

into the wavering salt flat of the Bay.

The palms, stooped ancestral gods,

gently clack their manes and nod.