Welcome to Pleasant Bluff

Caki Wilkinson

It's not unpleasant here. The chicken plants

and car plants grow like plants. Here, all the sames

are different, though a hell-bent countenance（支持，赞同）

persists in yards still plugging past elections

and latticed propane（丙烷） tanks. Here, names (like Jerry

of Jerry's Rigs) mean business; football games

mean war. Here, kids attend Dead President

Primary, right off Bigwig Avenue,

and strip malls flank the Holy Testament

(whose latest message, God's grace gives us rage!,

has lost the c-o-u); the new Corrections

Department borders Three Sons Barbeque

(run by two moms). Here, downtown is disguised:

the old PO a bank. The gallery

that used to be a mill, now capitalized

The Mill, sells space and photographs of mills.

Here, progress means, ostensibly（表面上）, a stage

of reclamation（开垦，收回）, from topography（地势）

to toponymy（地名学）. But since the genius lies

in places, not in names, here, once you're there,

you'll lack an actual to actualize,

finding no oaks in Oakmont Cemetery

and only shops in Walnut Square, no hills

in Eden Hills, no Eden -- anywhere.