Not Beautiful

Someone called it beautiful

and I just stood there.

The plastic bag is caught

on the chain-link fence,

flapping like it's trying

to get away. Not dancing.

Suffocating. The white plastic

wraps tighter with every wind.

We romanticize everything—

garbage becoming art,

suffering becoming poetry.

The bag will stay

there until it tears. We'll

probably find that beautiful

too. We're good at that.