Watching The Girls Go By

by Mike Lala

At the Virginia Beach waterfront along the boardwalk, there is an old, wood bench facing the Atlantic Ocean. Mounted on the center of the backrest is a gold plaque with a dedication and inscription bearing the words “Watching the girls go by.”

I question:
the smooth pine,
a rigor mortis of armrests and backrests,
the ribcage beams forming the seat and legs
bolted into concrete,
watching.

In the neon sundown,
the rings of years and knots in the wood,
the cigarette burns and knife-carved initials,
the worn-down hearts in-between,
ingrained, shallow by wind and sand,
left by watchers and hand-holders,
the smolderers of youth sat
on a seat of rigid pine.

I question:
if sitting
on the worn surface of a wooden bench,
torn skin fused into scars on elbows and kneecaps,
the burns on the sides of palms,
the blemish of acne scars worn down by the sun,
the tattoo needle to the ribcage,
if I’ll have sat there,
beachfront,
anywhere,
watching the girls go by—
watching, in stillness,
sitting, in sea salt,
aging, pocket-knifed, impermanent, a
biding of
time,

I question:
if there’s any difference
between that and death—
if the sitter and the seat
become one on the boardwalk
under the neon night
that makes it so hard
to distinguish
the lurid outlines
of with’ring flesh, bolted pine,
when all the girls stop going by
and the waves pull driftwood out to sea.

Michael Lala grew up mostly in the western United States and Tokyo, and studied writing in Michigan. He currently lives and curates the critically acclaimed, seasonal reading series Fireside Follies in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and is assembling a forthcoming volume of poems for Knickerbocker Circus Publishing. His work has appeared in the Red Cedar Review, The Offbeat, and elsewhere, and his collaborative photo project with Katelan Foisy, Lie & Indite, can be viewed at lieandindite.tumblr.com. He can be reached at lalamichael@gmail.com.