I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island.

Host:
The boardwalk stretched out like a forgotten melody, the worn planks glistening beneath the faint glow of the ferris wheel. The ocean whispered beside it — dark, restless, eternal — its waves breaking softly against the wooden pylons like applause for ghosts. The air was thick with salt and memory, and the faint echo of laughter lingered from the day, long after the crowds had gone home.

The lights of Coney Island still burned — weak but stubborn — illuminating the faded carnival signs, the half-torn posters, and the distant carousel that turned without riders, its haunting music box tune spilling into the night.

Jack sat on one of the benches overlooking the sea, a paper cup of coffee cooling in his hands, his grey eyes fixed on the horizon. He looked like a man suspended between decades — too young to stop dreaming, too old to believe they come true.

Jeeny walked toward him, her shoes tapping against the planks, her hair whipped gently by the sea breeze. She carried a small notebook in one hand, the pages fluttering with scribbles of thought and half-formed poetry. When she reached him, she smiled faintly, her eyes lit with that soft, reflective glow of someone who understood the romance of ruin.

Jack: “‘I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island.’” He said it with a half-smile, staring out at the sea. “Thornton Wilder said that. You think he meant it, or was he just being ironic?”

Host:
The wind carried the faint sound of the waves, washing over the words like punctuation.

Jeeny: “No irony, I think. Wilder saw what most people miss — that there’s poetry in places that have already lived their glory.”

Jack: “You mean decay?”

Jeeny: “I mean endurance.”

Jack: “You always find a prettier word for dying.”

Jeeny: “And you always confuse beauty with comfort.”

Host:
Her words struck softly, like the tide against the shore — steady, inevitable. She sat beside him, her notebook resting on her lap, the pages fluttering in the wind.

Jack: “So what would a poet laureate of Coney Island write about? Rusted rides and lost dreams?”

Jeeny: “No. About the people who come here anyway. The ones who still believe in magic, even after they’ve seen the wires.”

Jack: “That’s naïve.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s human.”

Host:
A seagull cried somewhere in the dark, its voice lonely and defiant. The lights of the Wonder Wheel flickered weakly, reflected in the shallow puddles that had gathered on the boardwalk after the earlier rain.

Jack: “You think Wilder was really talking about poetry? Or was he talking about nostalgia?”

Jeeny: “They’re the same thing sometimes. Nostalgia is just poetry without rhyme — a longing for something that still breathes, but differently.”

Jack: “Coney Island used to be a cathedral of joy. Now it’s a mausoleum for memory.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why he wanted to be its laureate — to write eulogies that sound like lullabies.”

Host:
She opened her notebook, flipping to a page filled with handwriting that curved like wind-blown leaves. Her voice softened as she read aloud:

“Every shore remembers its first tide,
Every light remembers the hand that lit it,
And every laughter still echoes
Through the boards that hold the weight of yesterday.”

Jack: “That yours?”

Jeeny: “No. Just what this place said to me when I listened.”

Jack: “You make it sound alive.”

Jeeny: “It is alive. Just older. Quieter. Like us.”

Host:
The ferris wheel turned slowly, its lights forming broken circles in the sky — incomplete halos. The sea breeze carried the smell of salt and fried dough, ghosts of carnival nights long gone.

Jack: “You know, there’s something tragic about it. The laughter’s gone, but the place still smiles. Like it doesn’t know it’s over.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it does. Maybe that’s what makes it beautiful — smiling anyway.”

Jack: “You always defend the broken.”

Jeeny: “No. I just understand them. There’s a different kind of holiness in what’s cracked but still standing.”

Host:
He looked at her, really looked, and for a fleeting second, his expression softened — a man recognizing something eternal in another soul.

Jack: “So maybe Wilder wanted to write odes to imperfection.”

Jeeny: “Or to resilience. To the things that keep showing up even when the world stops applauding.”

Jack: “You mean like love?”

Jeeny: “Exactly like love.”

Host:
The waves grew louder now, crashing closer, their rhythm matching the slow turn of the wheel. The lights flickered once, twice, before steadying again — as though refusing to fade.

Jack: “You ever been in love with a place before?”

Jeeny: “Yes. With places like this — half-alive, half-dream. They remind me that beauty doesn’t have to shout to exist.”

Jack: “And people?”

Jeeny: “Same rule applies.”

Host:
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. The coffee had gone cold, but he didn’t notice. His gaze drifted again toward the horizon, where the sea met the faint blush of the city lights.

Jack: “You know what’s strange?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “The first time I came here, I thought it was chaos — noise, lights, crowds. Now it feels like... poetry. Maybe Wilder was right. Maybe this place needs someone to translate its silence.”

Jeeny: “Every broken thing does.”

Jack: “You think he ever wrote about it?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. Maybe he just carried it in his heart — like a note that never needed to be sung.”

Host:
The camera would linger — the two of them sitting side by side, framed by the slowly turning ferris wheel and the gentle rise of the tide. The wind carried fragments of laughter from somewhere far down the beach, mingling with the hum of the city beyond.

The world seemed to pause, caught between what was and what could still be.

Jack: “You think I could be the poet laureate of Coney Island?”

Jeeny: “You already are, Jack. Anyone who still believes in its magic after all this time is writing poetry — even without the words.”

Host:
Her hand brushed his lightly, a quiet gesture that felt like a benediction. The ocean sighed. The lights flickered once more.

As the scene faded into the soft blue of the approaching dawn, Thornton Wilder’s words echoed — not as ambition, but as confession:

That the truest poets are not crowned in marble halls,
but found on empty boardwalks,
writing odes to the world’s forgotten places —
where time decays,
hope lingers,
and love, like the sea,
keeps returning, wave after wave,
to touch the same tired shore.