Them

You can watch and you can feel it, their down

home pride a kind of exclusive thing they tell 

themselves they are cool and you are outside 

their pinched little circle of nuisance 

variables of a punch list in command 

form you purposely neglect as though 

some shadow indistinguishable

from dust in specks and clusters scattered about

the floor not a dance floor but a supposed 

surface shared highlighting the as if 

resting uncomfortably in your mindful 

heart of the matter while left alone 

unto yourself realizing the glimmer 

of your own alternative universal home.