An Old Radio in Atlantic City

It drew people to it like a fire,
The needle floating up and down its dial,
Fishing for the news. It was a horror house,
A band-stand, Europe in flames,
A dummy and his master.

Among
The cloudy mirrors and calendars,
The radio knobs are toys now,
The beasts have been dragged out;
No tankers hug the coast at night,
Afraid of German submarines; the 1940s
Became the 50s.

The radio crackled
Like a forest once, or glittered
Like a pier in the brain’s darkness,
Walked by Miss Americas carrying
Flowers out with the tide.

—Lawrence Dugan