Walking down Decatur, I am so obviously
out of place. Like spider legs
all around me, alleys shoot off concealing
a one-eyed jazz singer entwined
in the thighs of a French madame,
cloaking black babes skilled in the art
of voodoo. Tripping past two crack dealers
I mutter my best "Good evening", and begin
to feel at home in my conspicuity.

I stop pretending that the garbage
clogging the gutters is "colorful",
and embrace instead the people of New Orleans
as they wade ignorant through the filth.
Like dripping monsters they reach out
to me in excruciating sloth. Drooling
y'alls from their gaping mouths
one by one, they grab by face,
and kiss it. I am still chewing the words

deposited on my tongue when the plane lifts off
for home. I crush my face into the window glass,
spread my arms out wide, and like a migrating bird
flying north for the spring, I memorize
the tributaries spilled out across the land like tar,
slithering though the swamps, binding the delta together.