New Orleans

This is the south. I look for evidence

of other Creeks, for remnants of voices,

or for tobacco brown bones to come wandering

down Conti Street, Royale, or Decatur.

Near the French Market I see a blue horse

caught frozen in stone in the middle of

a square. Brought in by the Spanish on

an endless ocean voyage he became mad

and crazy. They caught him in blue

rock, said

don't talk.

 

I know it wasn't just a horse

that went crazy.

 

Nearby is a shop with ivory and knives.

There are red rocks. The man behind the

counter has no idea that he is inside

magic stones. He should find out before

they destroy him. These things

have memory,

you know.

 

I have a memory.

It swims deep in blood,

a delta in the skin. It swims out of Oklahoma,

deep the Mississippi River. It carries my

feet to these places: the French Quarter,

stale rooms, the sun behind thick and moist

clouds, and I hear boats hauling themselves up

and down the river.

 

My spirit comes here to drink.

My spirit comes here to drink.

Blood is the undercurrent.

 

There are voices buried in the Mississippi

mud. There are ancestors and future children

buried beneath the currents stirred up by

pleasure boats going up and down.

There are stories here made of memory.

 

I remember DeSoto. He is buried somewhere in

this river, his bones sunk like the golden

treasure he traveled half the earth to find,

came looking for gold cities, for shining streets

of beaten gold to dance on with silk ladies.

 

He should have stayed home.

 

(Creeks knew of him for miles

before he came into town.

Dreamed of silver blades

and crosses.)

 

And knew he was one of the ones who yearned

for something his heart wasn't big enough

to handle.

(And DeSoto thought it was gold.)

 

The Creeks lived in earth towns,

not gold,

 

spun children, not gold.

That's not what DeSoto thought he wanted to see.

The Creeks knew it, and drowned him in

the Mississippi River

so he wouldn't have to drown himself.

 

Maybe his body is what I am looking for

as evidence. To know in another way

that my memory is alive.

But he must have got away, somehow,

because I have seen New Orleans,

the lace and silk buildings,

trolley cars on beaten silver paths,

graves that rise up out of soft earth in the rain,

shops that sell black mammy dolls

holding white babies.

 

And I know I have seen DeSoto,

having a drink on Bourbon Street,

mad and crazy

dancing with a woman as gold

as the river bottom.