Even in Gretna, Hearing the Cashier Talk, I Long for Gretna

^{after Basho}

Coasting into my old world to help

mom pack up the house she can’t sell

for nothing rimmed as it is with trash

and canals threatening to overflow

I get a taste for the red drink

of my youth and when the cashier

at the gas station lets slip the drawl

of my people most of them scattered

elsewhere or to the grave I could sob

peacock talk purposely showy and slow

any time I’d hit the twang mom got angry

because I was letting my Gretna show

she threatened a face slap or taste of soap

and I circled on a red bike just out of reach