There is no room for wanderers,
no place for soul searching on the electric wires
and rooftops of abandoned homes
or the empty warehouses lit with graffiti,
or the littered pavement leading to a liquor store,
or the railroad tracks trailing to some faraway place.
In Fresno, we live with its dry winter's cold
hinged to the backs of our hands,
its blossoms whispering of another harvest,
its fields tunneling dust in the middle of July,
its streets of sycamores and maples and gingkos
that live to shed another fall.
In a season of scarcity, the wind still blows
to carry us through the longest nights.
It is this breeze that calls to us
in the middle of downtown as we look back
only to find ourselves breathtaken and alone.