"Still life of Central Valley with riverbed and hypodermic
needle.
Under the bridge, a city of blue tarps ripples like a child.
Imagine water.
The snow flutters down like dove feathers.
Burned moths coats their azure waves
like sea foam, a perfect pastoral.
I'm sorry.
This is a lie.
It never snows here, but the image is so much prettier if I
don't say 'ash.'
Don't mention the plastic bags filled
with chemicals of flakes.
No matter how I cut this story, there's
always powder gathered off white at the hem of a mountain.
No matter which version I choose to tell you,
this image can still kill me.
Late fall, the foothills are ablaze,
and each river is wedding dressed in steam.
But under every bridge in this city,
the winter arrived years ago.
It's never left.
Here, the distance between a sleeping bag and body bag
reduces down to just temperature and chemistry.
I won't tell you about the nights spent there buying,
selling, half sleeping, while a cement heaven bent above me
under the weight of passing headlights
illuminating a field fluorescent bottles.
Syringes, like stretched out stars.
Down here, each depressed plunger
is a broken, damned, empty concept of a home,
a man made flood.
Beneath the skin, Blue has is twist,
a needle plunged beneath the surface spills synthetic joy.
Pond of ripples, frozen midway.
All the fish choke on the sudden heavy of their gills.
Pollution, a sharp glint hooked in the throat.
The river is brittle and collapsed.
Lips, cracked and needle, blissed, a friend
sleeps in the arroyo's ash flecked dust and will not wake.
Fresno River, an open grave.
I've only seen this river flow three times.
A sudden mud gray thunder, the color of rats after rain,
it spilled from every gutter, drenched lawns,
flooded streets, and returned each sacrifice we had given.
Cloths, gathering, an exodus back to the heart.
Car tyres, green tipped syringes, pocket change,
condom wrappers, bullet casings, rusted bike chains,
and snapped skateboards, a family,
dog's bones wrapped in so much white plastic.
You could almost mistake them for a child's ghost."