Some aisles smell dirty,
or sandy, perhaps
like rusted beaches
where children digging
find bottle caps
and dead starfish.
Not that it matters,
but for my sake
it feels old here
and crowded with
stolen centuries,
bottled up now
with words that
I cannot read
but have no mystery,
and my father,
paying with credit,
remembers how
miles away, he
picked lee-chee
off of misted trees,
breathing clean air
and dreaming of
far, strange lands.
William Sea's poems have
appeared in The Ash Canyon Review, The
Penwood Review, qarrtsiluni, and are forthcoming in Two Review. He is a teacher in Dallas, Texas and was born in
Taiwan.