Garden State Parkway, July 1988

Cruising the Garden State Parkway, July 1988,
windows down, soupy New Jersey wind,
acrid smells of petroleum 
from Bayway Refinery at Elizabeth busting the MTV dream. 
Dead Kennedys in the cassette deck, 
no paradise more tainted than
the impending Jersey Shore, 
brown sand, jumping boardwalks, 
the haunted house at Brigantine. 
We were young, newly 20s 
Saturday morning, spending youth
smoking weed, feeling the cold ocean 
water, drying in the sun, on asphalt 
when there was no room on the sand. 
Someone opens a cooler of 
Absolute and Hawaiian Punch,
we consume the lifeblood of the slacker. 
Saltwater air and taffy, rides on the boardwalk, 
the world tilted by joy and momentary bliss,  
Monday reality, morning snarl
Interstate 78 winding to Bridgewater, a day
of calculations, barely any pay.