Winter in Calexico

Now I understand why they wrote the Mexicali blues.Now I understand weaponized lovers.Now I understand that river won’t fillthis bucket. The Inuit have fifty words for snowwhich might be enough to crack the shellfrom these canals and smell the color of what’s inside.A growing membrane across the borderthreatens to engulf Calexico if not for men with gunsand birds with no cottonwoods to sing from. The borderis the idea of conceptual nuisance. Understand that families singover fences. Understand the moon songs that perchin ocotillos. The Blue Angels rip the runway,vibrating clay down bluffs where gnatcatchershide their cactus wool. Helicopters practice drawing circles.Men cast in sewage for tilapia somehow living.The Alamo collects selenium in leftover Halloween bagsand streaks into the desert to where a group of men in suitswith phones in their ears have disembarked,armed with their discretionary accounts.Now I understand why two young waitresses behinda swinging door crouch and whisper.Spring is the rumor of contaminada signsshipped away in combustible bins.