The Nor’easter was a convenience store

Years before there were convenience stores,

Shelves stocked with dusty tins, soups, vegetables,

Day old bread, a red Coca Cola chest

Cooler with sodas, milk, a few cartons

Of eggs on top. A door with jangling bells

Opened from the Boulevard. Bill Kane would

Come from his five room apartment at the

Rear, ratty brown cardigan over a

Nicotine yellow shirt, lean his elbows

On a counter beside a hand cranked cash

Register, cigarettes, candy, cigars

Stacked on narrow shelves behind him. “I’ve not

Been up to the beach in thirty years,” heOnce told me. “Except when the police callFor me to photograph a body ofSomeone that’s been murdered or drowned up there.”He shook his head, “Lad,” he always called meJuly 20, 2022