This poem is for Sarah, memories, music, travel and New Orleans, last year's Spring Break trip. In our hearts, we never really left.

The Big Easy
The war is starting and sticky air breaths on our faces,
arms and stomach. Snaking brown river laps our feet,
curling over each toe like sifted powdered sugar
and every breath we take fills our lungs with hot pungent
Cajun spice. We blithely chase our fears with sips of mango
and spilt plastic cups of New Orleans’ cheapest brew.

Night falls slowly in a lazy southern city and street bands
play for old men, young girls, witch doctors, palm readers,
accountants, homeless and wonder lust teenagers alike. Dance
in the moonlight, swing our arms like monkeys and skip
around, through and under while jazz strums and girls yelp
and raucous laughter spills under the moon’s streaming beams.

Catch the rainbow beads dripping from the torrid sky,
wring the strands from our hair and watch the dripping
puddles form on the cool, cement floor while piano players
tap out an easy pace and children scramble like sharks over
yellow and red and blue metal. We call it life and let it slip
away into peyote smoke. We call it home and never leave.