"You Hated New Orleans"
(For Kevin Wood)
New Orleans disgusted you, the French
Quarter where my heart made a home,
the kaleidoscope of shadows gasoliers throw
along decaying Spanish facades,
the caramel latte colored ladies and gents
strolling along the rent flagstone
walkways that line the Rues
adapted to the stench of piss and puke, sickened you.
The wrought iron balcony railings, contorted
vines, blackened with death—
you could not follow the local’s
thickened Creole accents, your mind translated
blanks of their words. Leaning buildings
that made you shake
your head, and never fell in,
caused you to long for the clean Mayberry
streets of North Carolina. We walked
along Jackson Square, past mediums
and tarot card readers, where ships float along
levies above in the muck of the Mississippi
like soaring Harriers. You’d never seen
‘a city so used,’ you said. They didn’t teach you
about such neglect back home. You watched
their death celebrations, the brass moans
of the mourning, their dancing struts
to the grave, and you faltered
with loathing. We sat as tourists
on the balcony at OZ; I think
you tried to decipher my love of it then,
my need of the steady sound of people
howling in the night, the thump of club
speakers vibrating through the wood
bench at our backs. I see you
in that moment, surrounded
by the press of a city’s sin,
and almost giving in to loving it.
© 2007 Shawn Nacona
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