Eight
p.m. six o’clock parade, daughter and her BFF
Trailing
hands held past the beer bottles stranded beads
African
four-year-old-dawlin is boogying down with mamma
A
CBD lawyer looks on mesmerized at her Bamboula rhythms in the blood
Transferred
from the St. Augustine Marching One Hundred
To
the intersection of Amelia and St. Charles Saturday night
Barbeque
briquettes three feet into the neutral ground
A
blue tarpaulin stretched as a Fraternity brother’s drunken wrestling mat
I
pull my child back before the buffalo slams on top of her as the Budweiser’s
spill
I
see the brunettes and blondes stare back at the plow beasts
The
grill is not upset, the meat is intact, a father, two-third graders rerouted
The
NOPD whoops it up siren in the road; my trio is walking against the stream
Of
incoming debauchery to soak in the second parade of the evening
After
the cups, doubloons, beads and explaining to my daughter
What
these faux-cloth Mardi Gras panties a grown man threw her from a float were
Seeing
the Cohen Green Hornet band, the dance team, the flag girls
The
flambeaux’s and the horseback Indian gentlemen of winter’s wave
The
beads draping the tree branches like Marine Semper Fi targets struck
These
Saints are marching home for two to have a sleep over in Tangipahoa Parish and me
To
make tacos, wash dishes and prepare for a walking collapse into poetry
Before
slumber of the string of faces cascading uptown as I see
The
muscle-bound pilsners and dainty-dress pinot noirs of uncorking the night
Like
opportunity at the beckoning moon
I
walk the eight more blocks back to a car of two booster seats
Next
to my old high school and the PB&J’s I thought about earlier for
Two
to snack on the ride back with pillows and rations stacked in the passenger
seat
As
the rear was full of two girls drawing in their notebooks of Adventure Time
Singing
along to the sounds of a father’s iPod playlist of Professor Longhair
The
faces wander in the drive of interstate fifty-five north like disembowelment
Wash
hands, pajamas, dinner is ready, zonk two friends on the sofa bed
I
am hungry for an adult conversation, the faces parade into meaningless
characterization
The
beauty, the strange none of it is decipherable too many logistics now
Too
much to explain in the city of dreams even at carnival time
No comments:
Post a Comment