Terry McCarty's poem "Galveston, 1966"

Terry McCarty has been writing poetry in, around (and sometimes about) ,Southern California since 1997. He has been published in anthologies including The Long Way Home: The Best of the Little Red Books, So Luminous The Wildflowers, 1001 Nights: Twenty Years of Poetry at Coffee Cartel and A Poet is A Poet No Matter How Tall Episode II: Attack of The Poems. Terry’s books include Hollywood Poetry: 2001-2013, and From Obscurity With Love.

everything's big when you're small:

the Jack Tar Motor Hotel restaurant

with the window view onto the swimming pool

Stewart Beach where my grandfather

and I took a rented float 

out onto the waves

and I swallowed salt water

for the first time 

and spit it out fast

the apocalyptic argument

my older brother had

with everyone else in the car

because he was forced to vacation

with the rest of the family

at the age of sixteen

instead of seeing his girlfriend back home

and, on the beach,

my dad pointed to

the pillbox installed

to protect the island 

during World War II

all over the outside

of the pillbox

one could see

the words SENIORS 67

and GHS

spray-painted in red and black

© 2022 Terry McCarty