Illustration (made for the poem) by John Trefry
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I went to New Orleans when I was young.
Spanish moss hung from trees like bodies in the still air.
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I wore white linen because of the heat
and the only time I felt comfortable was at three in the morning.
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Her shoulders were bare, her hips narrow like a boy’s,
her skin pale and soft as moth wings in the monochrome night.
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We cast long shadows in the cities of the dead.
We’d never grow old, we vowed.
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We rode the street car, drank Jack,
and planned a trip to Tennessee
(double n, double s, double e).
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We saw a white-washed clapboard house for sale and talked about a future.
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We would dig a pond in the backyard,
and find two albino alligators in the bayou
to keep as pets.
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She’s preserved in my mind;
a specimen pressed between the leaves of a favourite book
kept hidden at the back of a bookshelf.
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I saw her yesterday; she didn’t know me.
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I don’t recognize myself either.
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The switch is flicked and the lights come on, drawing in only moths
whose wings of white linen quiver around the naked bulb.
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They press their bodies against the hot glass and burn.
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