At the public park
++++++I cover my body
++++++++++++with sunscreen

and sit on a towel
++++++in my Coca-Cola
++++++++++++bikini, printed with

THE REAL THING!
++++++in cursive all over.
++++++++++++I’m reading Rukeyser,

trying to find language
++++++behind my facade
++++++++++++of language. Propped

on the hill, steel
++++++letters, 50 feet tall,
++++++++++++declare the current

name for this place,
++++++previously El Pueblo
++++++++++++de Nuestra Señora

la Reina de los Ángeles
++++++del Rio Porciúncula.
++++++++++++Before that, Tovaangar.

Decades ago, the sign
++++++was briefly altered
++++++++++++by an artist, sheets

of plastic revealing
++++++OIL WAR. If I look
++++++++++++past the page: within

THE REAL, HERE
++++++sits next to THERE.
++++++++++++In my hip’s dent,

sweat pools, drowning
++++++the gnat that tried
++++++++++++to traverse it.

—

Erin Marie Lynch‘s writing appears or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, New England Review, Narrative, Gulf Coast, and DIAGRAM. She is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California.