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Art Deco’d In New Orleans (1987)

Mostly I want comfort, to be
wrapped up in dulcet seventies colors;
wheat, avocado, and burnt orange
flooding my senses,
lapping at my tongue like hot coffee
mingled with the taste of warm beignets.

I get more than I bargained for with you,
psychiatrist, sophisticate–
sleek black Phantom Corsair,
silent as a stark white moon rising
over St. Louis Cathedral,
speeding past me,
college student, dewy-eyed–
those guileless purple morning glories
blow sideways as you accelerate
steel, skirted wheels, flush fenders;
no running boards or door handle
for my tangled tender vines to grab onto.

So much more to cultivate in my
patch of wildflowers on the side of the road;
baby black sunflowers, yellow aster,
white boneset, and blue mist
blooming in my belly,
just below the surface of undernourished soil.
So much more than long tanned legs
and a wisp of dark auburn hair
falling across a silver-flecked light blue eye.

You play upon my ‘Daddy’ issues,
promise to be my ‘Father Figure,’
just like George Michael.
Spin Maria’s spidery dance
of seduction in Metropolis,
arms and legs akimbo, arcing wildly.
We swim together in a blue-green pool,
lit from below, fountains casting shadows.
Arabesque keyhole shapes on tile
colored outrageous shades of green–
you say, the color of nature and renewal,
but somewhere deep within me,
patinaed copper, rot and decay–
hotel room with day old roses, empty wine bottles.

You hypnotize me; I stare into the
brass lamp on your desk–lithe ballerina,
naked, holding a light behind her head,
shaped like a sharp-edged tulip–enough golden glow
to give me hope like the crows that sit
on wrought iron fence outside Haydel’s Bakery,
waiting for praline pecan petit four crumbs.

Rare red dragonfly, no understanding
of the first cold morning in October;
neon green hummingbird, tail tucked,
clings to dried-out pods hanging
from last summer’s mimosa tree;
twenty-two-year-old girl you leave
in the hotel room. You cram
lithium and lorazepam pills in my hand.

Cenote

Your sight is fading, and soon
I will have to be your eyes,
turn my own eyes away increasingly
from the things that make me happy.

This giving up is a solemn endeavor;
a ritual is needed, the mystery of alchemy.
A Mayan girl breaks a piece of beautiful pottery
before dropping it into the blue-green water of a cenote,
hoping it will return to her as a precious gem.
I’m already broken; I don’t know how to embrace
your needs and let go a measure of my own.

I step gingerly on limestone stairs
that curve and spiral downward.
Jagged rocks stab at the soles of my feet
as I descend further into the mossy damp earth.
Using a ladder made of small tree limbs,
I slowly lower myself into the ice-cold cenote water.
Neon green vines and ferns cascade down cylindrical walls.
Tiny fish dart around me as I bob in the water,
head thrown back, looking up through the opening
at the dry, late afternoon pink-orange autumn sky.
Waiting for grace, waiting for the rain god,
who lives eighty feet below the place where I tread,
to twist the cave’s groundwater into a great tornado,
sending it up into the clouds.

I rain down on the lady in Isla Mujeres that
lives in a scorching corrugated tin house and cooks
bits of chicken in sweet dark mole.
I rain down on the man who paints butterflies on straw hats
on the blazing streets of Valladolid.
And I rain down on you, my Dear;
refilling the water in the coffee maker reservoir for you,
pouring the pasta into the strainer
so that you don’t burn your belly.
I help you slip your shoes over your heels,
and brush back the sweep of hair across your forehead.

Weight of Memory

I pull at blue-gray strands,
the color of your eyes.
Stitches fall away, recede
into the skein of universe.

Sun unravels as I step on a ray.
Great golden ball rolls away
down a path of salmon-pink horizon.
A feral cat bats it through
a field of goldenrod and
purple ironweed.

The bluebird unspools himself.
Downy blue feathers unfurl,
rusty velvet chest and throat,
tissue and bone disappear
into air in a zigzag motion.
A violet-colored strand drifts away
like a tail missing its kite.

I bisect myself with such care,
clean cut like the Black Dahlia;
the pallor of my torso against
the crusty brown winter grass
reassures me.
Memory gets up on dirty knees,
stands and walks away
down South Norton Street, back toward
the Crown Grill cocktail lounge,
chunky high heels click clacking.

Lying in my unbraided cosmos;
I take my rest in the white gauzy
detachment of this alien world.
Hide from the calloused hands of
Clotho the Spinner; hide from the
blue-gray memories of you
that hold and constrict my heart.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

F.D. Jackson lives in the southeastern U.S., along with her husband and sundry furry family members. When she’s not reading or writing, she can be found wandering the Gulf Coast with a cold drink in hand. Her works have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, FERAL, Willawaw, Third Wednesday and others.

Image generated on Magic Studio