You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Tuco was out for a morning walk.
Phoenix is overcast
and the air heavy with pollen.
He hears a sound and looks up
as two geese fly West-Southwest
one turns his head and honks at the other.
The other has an energetic reponse
as they head away.
His gaze falls to the vacant corner lot
that once held a ranch style house
with pool and trees.
Someone bought it,
cleared the house, the pool,
the trees in the lot.
Rumor is that they rezoned it
for three two story patio homes.
But the market flattened.
Rumor says the price dropped
but still the lot sits empty.
By the west fence,
next to the ajoining two story apartments,
the five story tall pine is dying.
No water but what is sprinkled
on the apartment lawn.
The empty lot sits vacuous
and fenced on three sides.
Dry,
and its late spring,
the heat not yet here.
Tuco thinks of the landscape around him,
how artificial it is,
how the city can change
should the drought build
and drive another civilization
from this desert oasis.
Oil pulls water from the ground
and pumps rivers dry far away.
Oil pulls cars across asphalt streets.
For now.
Some day
there will be no geese
debating their journey
in the early, cool, morning sky.
Tuco's imagination
turns to today.
The bloom of palo verde
off in the desert.
The bees
buzzing
and happy.
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