The problem is the to. We are going to…followed by place
Down in New Orleans. After the carnival has passed
and the tourist, who screamed in our ears for plastic
and stuffed animals, who have left the streets encrusted
with particles of themselves left over from the fight for
a coconut or a moon pie wrapper, have left for good.
We love that place, where the blues was born, where
the food is good and ethanol can swish around in cups
open to the air, for children to smell. They say in voices thick
with far, far away. And in New Orleans they transform into
people I don’t like. They wouldn’t like. Why does the city I
love allow foreigners to entice her with the economic promise
of tourism , with the empty promise of we’ll come back. Because
the people who love her back are forever sinking Down into New
Orleans. But she can never know. She will continue to endure
the foolishness of strangers. And we will continue to clean up.
Brooke, age 17