Natural Takeover of Small Things

Adios, Fresno

66 Adios, Fresno You could use more letters of love. Here, take these. You owe me nothing, except back pay. But I won’t mention it again. Trust me when I say I’ll have no regrets leaving you. Sure, I’ll hear it from the homebodies and deadpan hearts, who were born, loathe, and beg to die amid the drugged poppies. You can keep your fields, the sun will follow me. I won’t reconsider. I’ve overstayed my welcome by three generations. The musicians will be alright, by which I mean incomparable, by which I mean they get the work done. A g-string hangs over the baseball stadium on opening night when the whores go two-for-a-buck beneath the peeling paint of homerun alley. Fresno, your mosques are waning and your restaurant kitchens are wetter than before. Even the hungry are gutting cows in the pasture now. The farmers buy their vegetables in supermarkets, you know? There is a difference between lost and Laos. One day you will have all the water you need. 67 Your statue of David of Sassoon could use a rest, Fresno. Don’t bother looking for me. I will be lost to myself for the next hundred cycles, on a mountain near Red Feather Lakes. Caught up in raising three children who won’t mistake the humming of bees for their own ambition. Fresno, I can see your underwear through the holes in your jeans. If I wanted to be politically correct I would have registered my vehicle. I won’t miss the pretense, or the way your midnight reeks of pissed yeast and salami. I might miss the smell of a Huele de Noche during baseball season. Or the cut grass at Shazade Field. —damn, you’re playing to my nostalgia again. It’s all you’re good for. I’m glad you and I never had children. There would’ve been this thing of blood between us. Don’t get sappy on me. Outside the truckers are grinding their axles, and the exhaust pipes got the bulldogs going next door. You look pitiful when you’re in love. I didn’t say beautiful. This drought suits you. Am I being too hard? You’ll get over it. The refrigerator almost burnt down the house last night and I kept thinking somehow you were responsible for it. The bullet hole in my fence can only stare so long. 68 My cousin Art is in rehab now, but the silos wont shut up. The landscape talks the loudest shit in summer. Fresno, you try too hard. Why’d you have to take Andrés Montoya from us? Fresno, I might return if you promise to be good. Just that I can’t stand the heat. There are too many I-can’t-stands. As many fruit stands. My mind is a packinghouse with a sagging conveyor belt. Strawberries should taste so tart. Oranges should fit in the palm of an adult hand. There’s no such thing as windfall. A Pluot is incest at its finest. Enough said, Fresno. Adios. ...