errol miller
In Central Louisiana
A most impressive wine list
muffulettas, jazz, extremely happy hours
po-boys and catfish, the worst that can happen
is along bumpy ride, our mouths
filled with alluvial Delta soil
downtown we sometimes double back
trying to cover our own tracks in thin strips
of gulfside sand, what degree of success
is there in the low country, its cotton fields
its stately oaks, its picturesque menders
of bad roads swinging smoky lanterns
after noon on Wednesday we take streetcar
down the Avenue, down St. Charles
always mingling with the crowd
wrestling alligators and that old familiar lump
within our brains, an inkblot of loneliness
forms in our stomachs and spreads out
across the marshland, we wonder why
we want to be International stars
in our own time and yet it does not happen
cold beer cannot ever help, or art
or holding hands, it is the minstrel tune we carry
our corrupt judgment of ourselves, a nation
gone fishing in Lake Pontchartrain
seining near the ship channel for fresh water
guidance, and a voice of our own.
