Crescent City
errol miller
“What have you to show?”
Emily Dickinson
After summer flips on its humidity
and you get excited about New Orleans
you hop on the Interstate
in your rag of a Ford Victoria
escalating down to where they never switch
the liver with vermouth, you take out
the crosscut saw from 1950, paint it pastel
and play jazz between its tracks
you don’t know your way around
but it doesn’t make a damn, liberation
just plain liberation for your heartstrings
in a few blocks of sachet-scented Bombay
in a panting Southland city scape
where college boys sell college girls
and a party is forever, a little risky
you don’t know why but you fell it
you have dinner at Antoines and breathe
the backroom’s occult air, weaving
your way to a culinary outback hotel
off Bourbon Street, you lay down easy
rolling between soiled bed sheets and murals
of gorgeous women taking reservations
you’ve been to Trinidad, you think
powdering your fading wig
examining your body for bruises.
