I worked in an office where we hired a good-looking man.
It paid off in the hot tub at the office retreat.
What’s on the inside might get you a job
unless someone who is pretty is pretty on the inside.
I follow too many studs on Instagram, guys flexing
with coffee cups in the morning, guys flexing by the pool,
or candid photos in bathrooms, shirts raised.
I tell my students it was hard to leave modeling.
They don’t know if they should laugh,
and when they do laugh I ask why they’re laughing.
When did poetry become youth culture,
curated personas, unrevised, and everyone
saying they’re brilliant? The hottest guys post
the dumbest quotes: You won’t reach your goals from the couch.
I post: You won’t reach your goals without genetics and money.
I stood behind men at McDonald’s
trying to take their pictures without getting caught.
I wanted to text them to Brendan.
All I could get was a thick-shouldered back
not a perfectly-angled face.
It was a male model convention with value meals.
It was Poetry.