Vultures float over the RV park, their wingspans wider than trailers and mocking our idea of the “mobile home.” These birds grasp the meaning of freedom; they’ve got their own ideas of fast food and are eager to feed on our weathered flesh under the clearest of skies. Locals joke, they watch us brown then eat us rare.
My appetite surges in tandem — on outdated apps where intimacy’s touched on, but hands-off. I flirt without hope, outside driving distance. Floridian sheets of rain slap the tin awning and heighten my off-season solitude. Like me, Mother Nature has gone antisocial: Stay indoors or go underground, she commands. How else to interpret the rain?
Not far down the beach, I jog past three adverts: Go kayak! Go jetski! Go parasail! That last one entices with what looks like hang-gliders slingshot then tethered to boats at full throttle. According to a guy handing out a brochure, you can use your own car to get airborne. The lift is the same. The landings are rough.
The postcard I’m sending, I found at the front desk. The sunset displayed is not one that I’ve seen. The photo is likely from Key West or Tampa. As for the gray dolphin (who looks like he’s flying), he’s stuck in a moment of up, up, up. I’m down in Fort Myers. I’ve heard you’ve left Jersey. Please tell me: Which way do we go?
About the Poem
My parents own an RV in Fort Myers Beach but fled back to Leisure World in Silver Spring, Maryland earlier this summer because of the lack of a thoughtful COVID policy in Florida (which generates one terrifying headline after another).
About the Author
Drew Pisarra is the author of “You’re Pretty Gay” (2021), a collection of short stories, “Infinity Standing Up” (2019), a collection of homoerotic sonnets, and “The Strange Case of Nick M.” (2021), a radio play commissioned by Imago Theatre.