Uneasy Piazzas

Wagonloads of sunburned refugees
Dragged up and down oak-canopied streets
Drawn by horses equally overfed
Troops of tennis-shod, t-shirted, shorts-togged trekkers
Marching ducklike
Through newly gleaming history

The dry, starched, bow-tied Charlestonian
Sips his dry martini, never looking out
From the fetal darkness of his louvred piazza
Pining for his newly re-abused home,
Longing for thread-bare rotting fragrant days,
Sighs….for lost love, grave injustice, and long-absent wealth.