French Quarter After Dark

by

Amber Decker

The city is mad with the footsteps of strangers
rain-soaked
the blur of traffic lights hazy
on wet roads

Bourbon comes alive in circus light
costume and full makeup
Dancing girls grind and slither
bars fill with lonely men hitchhiking their way to
someplace better

Cats disappear on feather-light feet
into their secret world of tombs and shadow

The city bellows river maiden banshee
Creole dominatrix
dear sad mother lost deep
in her dreams

The neon night is wild with horses
stamping through fire

We walk Toulouse hold hands in the dark
sweet jazz of desire races through hot blood
I throw myself into the haunted streets of your body
run reckless undaunted

Like a fountain my lips spill kisses
inside your bright mouth
A piece of this is yours homeless heart
I give you my warmth like a winter blanket

Boats pass by downriver    great beasts groaning

I will hold this moment
a Bible a rosary a sacred candle
We are two pieces of Voodoo in the rain melting

In this instant I am whole I am holy
Soft gray southern boy honey-voiced
like New Orleans to the breast of the Mississippi
you cradle me

Sweet starving artist paint me in this moment
dark as Marie Laveau
shrouded in mist
in heat
rising

 

 

 

 

Amber Decker's first collection of poems, Sweet Relish (Grundle Ink), was published in 2002 when she was just nineteen. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various print and online publications, including: Subtle Tea, Exquisite Corpse, Ostentatious Mind, and decomP Magazine. She currently resides in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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