Taste of a Hurricane
The sky is believe blue
and I am running
the taste of a hurricane
lots and lots of vacant lots
and glowing cat eyes dawn
through city streets gone wild
tall grass and empty space
cut short.
Sweating in Cynthia’s house
masked, air close, like a tomb
we scale ladders, balance the beams
Up, down, and side to side
circle, circle, cut the pie
scraping away the dead
skin of this place
attic, kitchen, closet,
leaving our hearts behind.
Running in the night
street-corner celebration
urine, vomit, beads, dance
to the jazz parade playing,
trombones long.
Band in a van
drum beat pounding
the taste of a hurricane.
Miss Josephine feeds us
jambalaya, bread pudding,
sweet and thick.
Thirty-six months to get back
to her kitchen
but she made it all
with thanks for her life, and us
and in one lunch she gives more
than we could ever return.
Juan carries pirate
in his blood, struggling.
His disappearing land: water, palmetto, silt.
Fish and oil, scarce and spilled
with recklessness.
He will work on the rig
once the shrimp and crabs are caught
running tours and calling:
Viens ici, cher bayou,
Viens ici!
We are running on the beach
like in Baywatch
diving in water and sand
after a lopsided ball
we will get sunburned
and see stars
bring home the Gulf shore, in our shoes
and sleep sound, through the snoring.
Mississippi rising
behind the sugar plant, too close to home.
and Tanya worries
the taste of a hurricane.
Sorting boards in the lumberyard,
muddy smell of cypress in the heat
No pools to cool kids in summer
and Joby has the car packed, just in case
he would swim, if he had to
because this is home.
May Day rain at Magnolia, students blooming
playing Duck, Duck Goose with Justin
and the beanbag toss, the dunk-tank.
Robert paints teeth, asks us to write
while Adam flips the bird, grins.
After the talent show we pick
out art to pack in our suitcases
learning like we never learned
at school before:
how the most valuable things
are packed up on the inside.
We are running along the levee
to the shore of the industrial canal
to see the ships, the shore
lifting with the bridge
climbing concrete in the sun.
If we could keep running
away from home
we would run to here
to find out what it means,
New Orleans, already missing
the taste of a hurricane.
-Daphne Paszterko, June 2011.
I wrote this poem as a series of flashes of our experience in NOLA – the different places we worked and some of the amazing people that we met during the trip. I also wanted to capture how I think we were captivated by New Orleans, and how so many of us want to go back.
Depending on scheduling maybe we can do another? Always good to continue to knock down the price to get there!
