Marc J. Cid
During My First Visit to the Pacific Northwest
Is this air clean
or just cold?
I’ve wobble wandered under
Los Angeles city smog for so long
I don’t know if I know
what clean air smells like,
can’t tell if I can tell
how clean air flows
through my respiratory.
Are the ingredients of this meal fresh
or is the price tag and restaurant ambiance
high class cash cost enough for me to be willing
to assume freshness?
Are these media casting choices representative
or simulating diversity by including the bare min-
imum of underrepresented min-
ority groups to exceed
our current gauge for tokenism?
Is this relationship mutually fulfilling
or just not overtly toxic?
Am I lazy, or actually depressed?
Is this society serving the best interests of all
its members
or just claiming it is and redirecting the burden
of failing responsibility
onto those whose shoulders they’ve sculpted
into scapegoat?
Is this government functional and prosocial
or just less flagrantly corrupt than other elsewhere
governments and I’m so used to hearsaying “others have it worse”
that I’m not used to wondering how what directly affects me
could be better?
Am I depressed, or just lazy?
Is this relationship mutually enriching
or just not deliberately toxic?
I don’t know if I know
Can’t tell if I can tell;
is this air clean
or just cold?
Marc J. Cid is the author of Theatrical Release, a chapbook published in 2017. His poems have appeared in Cadence Collective, The Black Napkin, East Jasmine Review, and Incandescent Mind, as well as in the anthologies Short Poems Ain’t Got Nobody to Love (2016) and Snorted the Moon and Doused the Sun (2017), both published by For the Love of Words Collective and edited by Raundi K. Moore-Kondo. Marc works with a media company, lives in Downey, California, and can often be found performing at various poetry open mic nights throughout Southern California.
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