going home

we drove the old highway

over the boeuf river bridge

past swampy green marshes

where I imagined snakes and alligators

waited for some unwitting little girl

like me to stick in a toe and get gobbled up

past abandoned farmhouses

that looked old and tired

like they had held enough living

inside their walls

for one lifetime

and were ready to

lie down in the cool dirt

and be done with it already

grandaddy said we could choose

one and he’d fix it up for us

but we knew he was just pulling our legs

past the abundant life full gospel fellowship

with its warning about ye not knowing the day

nor hour wherein the son of man cometh

and the aptly-named

start video shack

grandmama would tell us how

rayville sat smack

between the towns of start and dunn

and how folks liked to joke

that when god created the heavens and earth

it began in start and finished in dunn

not that grandmama joked much

that was grandaddy’s department

past ma’s rummage etc.

and the pecan land mall

back to monroe

where mama and daddy

would be waiting

to take us out to genusa’s Italian

where the flickering light of

candles dripping with wax

stuck in chianti wine bottles

made me fall asleep

on the red and white checked tablecloths

before my cannelloni even came

and my sister would wake me

when it was time to leave

and we would finally go home