bali

you can choose to focus

on the bottle caps, plastic

sea shells riddling

the beach

the errant honk

of a truck coughing

nitrogen oxide, ozone

staining the air

and the thrumming

bass from cafe speakers,

a hundred, a thousand

people like ants

or you can

choose the sea spray,

the taste of foam as

salty as a fry grill

at macdonalds’

each pinprick of

burning sand burrowing

between, under

the gaps of

your toes

and looping brown cliffs

standing upon the

ocean, upside down

smiles riddled with o’s,

eroded by memories

of crashing waves

you

can choose this:

the clear waves

frothing, over

plastic dirt