Ice Water with a Lime

I needed a home
so I came to the city
near the Gulf, to the clean little

apartment with the pullout bed—
for the first days it rained hard
and I felt uneasy, my brain

triggered the neurological pathways
most familiar: endings,
grief, and sorrow. At night

I strolled the beach, impressed
that I could see stars
glistening above sky scrapers;

the sky persistent in giving
light even after its sources
are long dead.

At what had I failed?
At what had I not?
When the light refracts

through the pollutants, the sun
sets beautifully over the beach.
If the city sinks, the city sinks.