When you go West across North Carolina, you don’t leave the ocean behind
it climbs into the sky and weather misbehaves like a roily child.
On the outer bangs of wisdom there lives a hermit who uncovered the secret to enlightenment.
The lights turn off for a reason.
We’d rather call them seasons.
Than admit we belong to a slapped sideways birth.

The ombre of approaching storms. The tangerine sheen after a rough one.
Languid, pale yellow, bruised banana, soaked bandana summer days
no one remembers anyways. Something about the weather today
wipes away the warning off yesterday’s. Don’t claim to understand it.

North Carolina has tried and some here you’ll find look just under deep fried
but for the time clouds keep cropping up and our limping, lopsided farmer
with a sloshing watering can. Our ocean in the sky has high and low tides
and waves crash and wash out a summer garden easy as beach sand.
Five hours from the coast.
Same salt stinging in our eyes.