just a mirage
Helicopter flights over the Hoover Dam. Late night carnivals in the suburbs. Every night feels like summer. You can walk around everywhere with a drink in your hand. Rooftop Rides on the 112th floor. Rollercoasters through hotels. Slot machines in the supermarkets. Boat rides through shopping malls. A luau 270 miles from any ocean. Anything to the contrary just wouldn't be normal.
Powerlines run for hundreds of miles through the desert, over red rocks past coyotes and scorpions, wild horses and rattlesnakes, to light up neon signs on drive-thru wedding chapels against a backdrop of palm trees and stars. A river so massive, able to carve canyons, hogtied by modern man to generate 2,074 megawatts of hydroelectric power. Nothing is impossible in Las Vegas. Everything is permitted. If you let life roll with the dice, you can get married, divorced, win big, or lose your life savings in the blink of an eye. Find a ten dollar bill on the carpet and turn it into five hundred.
From the top of the Stratosphere to the depths of the Grand Canyon,
from the Elvis impersonators to the Tahitian girls with sunset eyes,
over 2700 miles from their island, another 2700 to my home
like a school kid with no bedtime
I will miss my desert oasis.