Invitation to Tender
       

My friend Danielle tells me
to use a slightly more capacious
we in my poems & I look up
capacious: "ample, roomy, vast,

immense" & think of the church
marquis across from Publix:
GOD IS REAL & LOVES YOU since
the you is all of us & we don't

deserve this enormous earth.
Along the beach here people
walk the wrack line, heads
bowed or plant themselves

on their knees in one spot
searching for washed up
shark teeth in the shell hash.
Our configurations of attention

are sometimes surprising—
is it capitalism or adoration
that tells us we can inhabit
anything? There are many

ways to participate in
(egress from?) this world.
See the molten sun dropping
into the Gulf? The lightning

in the distance blinking the
clouds, trying to warn us?
There are still loggerhead
nests roped off with tri-

angulated wood stakes &
orange caution tape though
just today the Endangered
Species Act was weakened

to clear the way for mining
& drilling & development.
Every day at dawn volunteers
walk the beach to count

hatchlings, release any left
behind into the Gulf so they
don't get eaten by predators.
If there is an invitation to

tender, it is written in drift
toys & sea glass—dunnage
swept in by the tide & left
right at our feet. We can all

procure. We can all excavate.
We can all strip down to our
softest parts & (satisfy the
client) make our best offer.

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Copyright © 2020 Erika Meitner All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission