Stray Kids of Fernandina Beach by Steven Croft

hunger a small price for our endless summer,
free of parents, chores, older brothers

The chrome-glinting cars of island tourists
swished by, between us, five darkly tanned boys spanning
both sides of Atlantic Avenue, barefoot in bathing suits.
Shirtless, like crows scavenging for leftover bits
of nourishment, we lift feet occasionally to extract
pesky sandspurs, search verge grass for castaway bottles
we can return to Jiffy for a five-cent deposit.

We find the richest cache, four bottles,
by the entrance to Fort Clinch State Park,
a reputed burial place of Blackbeard's gold --
somehow appropriate. My group waits to run across
the hot, shimmering asphalt which can pierce through
calloused soles with kettle-hot heat, our arms full
of bottles. Four girls old enough to drive yell wildly
and wave. I can't wave back.

Down the strip, past The Surf Motel, the waterslide,
go-karts, we enter Jiffy like conquerors, holding enough
bottles to buy two bags of potato chips. Heading
under the Main Beach Pavilion's corrugated metal roof, we
divide the spoils on a concrete picnic table, talk about
that day we asked a lady grilling at one of the pavilion's
battered steel grills if we could have one of her burgers, sizzling
with seductive aroma. "You boys hungry, sure!" She gave
each of us one, saying, "We just homefolks from Callahan."

After the chips disappear from the table, we go watch
the go-karts, dreaming of five dollars and shoes -- a sign
in red says, SHOES REQUIRED -- that would let us race around
the oval track (driver's licenses not required). We drift
to the nearest apartment complex with its fenced pool,
FOR RESIDENTS ONLY. We swim as the guests of Clint if
questioned -- a schoolmate resident gone to summer with
his mother in another town. Later, as day fades, we'll
collect our bikes from their stack behind Jiffy. I'll ride home,
feet turning petals, mouth already tasting dinner's leftovers.

hunger a small price for our endless summer,
free of parents, chores, older brothers



Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. He is the author of At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, 2023). His poems have appeared in online and print journals and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.