Lobster Pots

The old wooden lobster pots
await us in an untidy heap
of splintered lathes
and dry rotting netting.

The oily backwater
slowly laps at the cement
and rotted wood dock
when the tide is high.

A mile of chemical smell
and old cars, sunken timbers
and abandoned dreams
stretch away at low tide.

Barnacle encrusted buoys
are scattered here and there.
The paint that used to claim ownership
now looks garish and misplaced.

Sea birds merely glance,
and fly slowly on,
no longer thinking of meals
of discarded bait bags.

Wood pots were traded
for stronger steel
as a way to regulate
and improve fishing here.

Lives lived and died
upon the heaving back
of the Atlantic were abandon
when over-harvesting killed a future.

The old wooden lobster pots
await us in an untidy heap.
The old fishermen look,
shake heads and weep.