Thinkin’ bout walkin’ with Fats

I imagine a living room decorated in New Orleans

With my Jazz Fest memories pictured and hung from the walls

Fats Domino, Operating Ivy, Woody Guthrie and Sage Francis singing out my stereo

Standing over a roux with wooden spoon over a gas stove in the kitchen  

A porch with a seasonal flag pole where I can make my own flags

Of stitched patches and permanent marker quotations

From my heroes from myself flying for the world to see

Twelve square feet of front grass or garden, parsley and cilantro  

The wooden planks of a shotgun painted in an azure hue with golden striking shudders

A color palate not of suburban Dallas or Tangipahoa Parish crying  

Here is a man who is home and does not give a shit about moving again

Not any time soon I am painting this bitch whatever color the fuck I want

And wait till you see my K&B purple cabinets with my fleur de leis pulls

Honey I’m home an ain’t nobody tellin’ me shit no mo 

Ahh, Gawd Darlin’ the moon is out and my gumbo gonna taste damn fine

My trinity is sweating in light green, dark green and white

The chicken, Andouille, shrimp and crab are making love to the okra

The cayenne is mild compared to what these days might be 

And I am looking out at the sky alone as ever,

But at least I am not there in a soil of concrete and cow shit that just smears

Day after day with the eighteen wheelers passing the interstate

On un-cracked streets with sewer and water boards that actually function  

Give me the potholes and the crime cameras and the death watching me

To see if I flinch, give me the angels of Magazine Street that disappear into the silence,

But at least they might exist like talking mares of Narnia I can finally speak

If not to a soul, at least to myself that Ulysses is home  

If not to the shore, at least to himself, to finally put head to pillow

And take a God damn breath