Maine
Maine
by Jennifer Kronovet
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.
Out in natures culture
beside the one we made
animals use aposmatism
to tell all the threats
it is more threatening.
Our culture, the defense,
went out and finds beauty
ignoring thorns for flowers
wolves for puppies
snakes for their knowledge
to strangle the stem
in slender vases
train the puppies to turn
on their own packs
and crush the vipers
under our heels for fear
that what has beauty
should outshine ours
Our culture defines beauty
as anything worth killing
to hold there for a while
in that place where awareness
has exposed our naked nature