There is culture
and there is The Culture
of a place making you
friendly, wearing your
sense on your sleeve.
Here, on the page, we
always want to talk
about beauty. Out there—
out the window—we leave
a mattress in an empty lot.
Don’t make me find you
beautiful. I say that
to the ocean. It keeps
giving itself away
like the girl I was in HS.
The internal culture shifts
too slowly to see like mold
grows. I have become
myself again. Again,
the sensible sand.