| Cross A Long Bridge Cross a long bridge in the cloud's torn membrane rain wrecks our paint job in a few short steps to the glass door we rush through it like goats surveillance cameras drag bleak shadows down the warped hall through the lens in the hotel where firemen attend an overdose points of weak light point downward to the ghetto where most of the paint has worn off or been eaten and laughter slams into a wall again and again houses like the jewelry boxes the prisoners on death row made from match sticks Walk down Rue Royal where its still uneven, the dark and light high ceilinged houses let warm drafts and small blue lights of the spirits through the docent wears a necklace of berries like dried blood we pass through the fourchette and beneath the alligator skull empty our pockets at the altar, small gesture for the slaves who risked their lives carrying talismans in cotton Black and white photo of the priestess who left years ago up the tree into the next here hangs her velvet dress she brought forth a mushroom a wishing stump the conductor for the force of it and throbbing canvass of snakes and a dancer holding one in her back wearing white damp garments in a dark grotto the boughs low with coarse gray hair and seed pods Fruit was fed to the drum this afternoon now it smokes through the cells and the spinal fluid lights up next to the auditory nerve in the second story we are cooled by a boa constrictor called Eugene Grandmother told us to watch for alligators rising up from the St. Charles and into the alleys but from the window we only see chalked skin, lips like bleeding plums a deadly body dressed in a black slip she passes into the crowd slightly above ground We go by carriage past the old house of the Priestess she acquired by a Guinea pepper gris-gris the ferrier tellers the story of the prisoners she visited their hanging ropes broke the next day and they went free Paris bruised her heart then was lost in a blackened sea back when the dark hair dressers all worked a few charms and they say a storm issued from Mam'zelle's fingers her veined arms and hands stood out like wings, then she clapped I've seen the squamous clouds drop down from a low ceiling they pressed around us then rushed over the swamps and the tonic herbs it thundered in the burned plantation where those with collapsed hearts still haunt the ethers the old woman with a tigon blew cornmeal out the palm of her hand onto the bricks the lights shot out for a split second then the dance went on riding the drum All Souls Day the sun returns, steam coils up from the gutters guard with a pistol stands at the gate of the cemetery we cover our heads and pray at the Priestess's tomb where offerings have been left: bottles of rum, coins, a package of condoms, white flowers the crumbling tombs like some ancient civilization and marble mausoleums of the rich towering over coarse stones farewell to the deeper gatekeepers -- St. Peter, Ellegua! It is the clicking noise that stands out most in my mind oh yes, the thief thinks I don't notice that he is loading a gun and trying to cover it up by loading a camera while glancing me with the killer's look I tell him to go to hell and then run and find myself in carnival time in the spice market with the oil and powder dealers looking for a deck to lay my head on in a house of cards the proprietor is in the hall with a lit cigar I am safe from the loaded cartridges long as I stay in the throng on Bourbon St. but even in this dream I grow tired of smoke, divinity, fish and wine and want to go home. An alligator slips into the river and sinks down clutching a lock of hair I wake up in need of a Headache Woman a filled candle is dropping shells on the plate it sounds like hail I find some garlic, wrap it in a leaf and crush it against my head |
acknowledgment to The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren and Jambalaya by Luisah Teish |