I have never been wandering through drizzling petals
small children with flawless skin heaved over balconies
as they celebrated the return of heroes. It is never
a fluid dance of red food color diffusing into water.
I have yet to enjoy moments of sighing glory;
passions are made bleak cinders in the sky.
I cannot say I have ever been to a bright, moonlit dinner
where we eat salads bursting with watery delight, followed
by a course of precisely cut steaks drenched in salted sauces.
The flowers I have treaded upon have all fallen into the gutters,
with refuse, and tar washed rain; waiting for the drains to unclog,
so they might slough off the road, out of sight of the wealthy
courtiers of the Riverpark shops, and gone
from the beggars on every street corner from Olive to Friant.
The street lamps turn off by three at night, and Fresno decays.
Under the smells of citrus and diesel fumes the youth all run away
to greener and bluer, less fallow lands in Berkeley and LA.
I am left here under the shade-less oleander,
while a train rumbles by and sirens sing of disaster.
In the moonless glow I strolled past dry canal streams,
and white mulberries melted on summer weary leaves.