Picked up an anthology of Maine poetry at the Porter Memorial Library and came across a poem that's set in Machias and mentions the A&P that used to be on Main Street. The sign pictured above had been tossed out at the dump. A friend of ours retrieved it quite a few years ago, then gave it to us when he realized it would always gather dust in his barn whereas we always hang our junk on the walls. At the risk of imminent arrest by the copyright police (remember the library cop in that Seinfeld episode?), I thought I'd share the poem.

Bluefish Run, Machias, Maine

by Paul Nelson

As if the banks were lined by spiders

tossing long, shimmering filaments

the river crawls along like prey.

I've come, parked with the rest,

all our radios on the local station

for news of ourselves, in between the music

hard people are soft on. Cut-bait, treble-hook plugs,

wobbling spoons, plop among the frantic menhaden.

Cars jam the A&P lot, the store so empty

Fred and the butcher stand in their aprons,

arms folded in the big glass doors.

The Georgia Pacific, humped with pulp logs,

pulls up at the crossing, diesels wheezing,

drumming while men climb up

to see from the piles.

There is a flush of small fish, as if a wind

frittered the surface, or someone

blasted it with birdshot.

Then another.

They wheel the old folks down from the manor.

They sit in a row like dental work. No kids in school

but here with their battered rods, freshly taped.

Teachers are seen, pushing off in their skiffs.

Big hats down over their eyes. Someone says

the postmaster is having a fit,

who won the Six Mile Lake Fishing Derby twice.

A reporter goes from elder to elder.

Not one of them remembers anything like it,

bluefish down from the west, chasing "pogies"

clear under the falls in a thrash of blood,

under the stilted balcony of Helen's Restaurant.

Next morning the river has died, badly bitten.

Gulls wander overhead.

Blown with trash, the banks recede like gums.

Skiffs are hauled, turned over,

shells the crabs eat out.

Over coffee at Mac's, people count.

Some have caught a fish. Four crescent tails

are nailed to my woodshed door.

For summers to come

they will draw the iridescent flies.