Setting for a Dream

overwatered succulent on the windowsill of an apartment in a developer built five-over-one sticks it browning leaves to the sun

far from the desert it wasn't born in far from the purple backdrop of mountains the pebbly soil sand the one gas station for miles the crow watching the road from a post all that was left of the fence where the land was marked off for lots the new homes the billboard promised went belly up in the sub-prime crisis

there is always hope before crisis bubbles are dreams fed by greed the investors pushed for more money was cheap, sign here and be done sleep well, ignoring the tickle, in the back of the mind how is this all possible? how does success rise from the gleaming eye?

like succulents propagated in plastic pots one plucked from the desert mothers a line of little clippings, they grow so does the wholesale price: buy the plants, flip the plants, buy the plant, kill the plant

move out of that apartment you never really moved into if you look at the faded flier for the artisanal farmers market the succulent came from you can see the high water mark now the tourists have gone home and it's the off season boarded up storefronts and for rent signs waiting for the season to change waiting for mad men with a gleaming eye to come upon a desert and call it paradise

call for artists to beautify the detect ruins to dupe them into making a valuable container that they don't own the deeds for the seasons keep cycling the sun and the rain give way to plants of all kinds even the harsh desert has its thick-petaled rose can it belong to no one and every being all at once?