The Cottage Poem by L C Vieira

The cottage has changed.

I sit uncomfortably, passing an hour
before the long drive home,
looking for a reason to sit here.

I ask the waitress at The Pelican's Roost
for a catfish - and pen and paper.

She obliges me, as do the others
with their moments for observation.

There is a girl in a bikini,
adjusting herself,
and across the street, Scout Hall
and the Curling Club.

Still there, but no more Crust 'n Crumb,
the bakery I haunted years ago.

The waitress tells me they're bringing in
an internet cafe
cappuccino
for the Americans -
they're used to Starbucks
on every corner.

They come here for the summer to sail.
and I am now the outsider,
the long-forgotten ghost, ex-wife
of summers of the distant past,
here only to dropp off a child or two -

on some connecting beach
where I once walked, welcomed
by the lake as one of its own.

(2003)