It’s the mist kissing Of overgrown forgotten fields Impotent for anything more than Dandelions and Foxtails Now content to lay dormant. And it’s the haunting call Of abandoned broken barns Made of splinters and rusted Tetanus That once housed the John Deere, and before that an Appaloosa. I feel it like the tug of a Tijuana street minor Tithing U.S. dollars with relentless devotion. It’s an Atlantic undertow off the coast of Del Mar; A grand sucker punch of Houdini proportion. It’s the day’s ride illusion Of mountain worn hills Eroded to all soft edges and shrubbery Quietly smoldering for new great heights. It’s the old black and white fable Discovered among the dust on Grandma’s attic chiffonier, A porcelain doll and her staunch mustachioed suitor Supposedly taken just days before the quake of nineteen o six. I want to feel the damp on my face, Smell the hay dust, and hear the grinding of eroded pebbles under foot. I want to witness two lovers lost in the rubble of a phoenix San Francisco. I’d give all my spare change to the mendigo for just the chance...