NOLA

Spring Broke

Our family went to New Orleans

Gaudy,

Gorgeous,

Gory,

Glum.

Everything a little electric,

A little poisonous,

Funky.

Swollen and slow,

A great holy mishmash of

Joy and sorrow,

Good food,

Good times,

and good people.

Flood waters and rum,

Snakes and bums,

Sluggish bayous,

Levees and voodoo,

All of it set to

Jazz

That holds the note,

And rocks the boat,

And floats like fog over cotton candy Colored houses,

Active alleyways,

and Quarters French.

The notes ring out

Neighbors shout

Riding a street car named desire,

The teenager drums, keeping time.

Cobblestone and gravestone,

Cajun

Black

French

Creole,

Plump Black women call us baybay, yasss.

Butter slides like sweat.

The hardshells and sugar

Make you almost forget

A Crescent City was once slowly sucked into the sea.

We left the parks, beats

And rat boned streets,

Beignets

and ettouffe

Praline bacon— who knew such a thing—

To write our own mishmashed histories.

Greedy

Needy

Secretive

Showy

We finished the drink and left

To find those streetcars named

Desire.