—after the painting by Diego Velàzquez, ca. 1619She is the vessels on the table before her:the copper pot tipped toward us, the white pitcherclutched in her hand, the black one edged in redand upside down. Bent over, she is the mortarand the pestle at rest in the mortar—still angledin its posture of use. She is…
all the way to Ship Island. What we seefirst is the fort, its roof of grass, a lee—half reminder of the men who served there—a weathered monument to some of the dead.Inside we follow the ranger, hurriedthough we are to get to the beach. He tellsof graves lost in the Gulf, the island splitin half…
They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose namebegins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong—mis in Mississippi.A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the sameas slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi.Faulkner’s Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given his namefor the…
flanking the roadside, tangleof understory—a dialectic of darkand light—and magnolias blossominglike afterthought: each flowera surrender, white flags drapedamong the branches. I returnedto land’s end, the swath of coastclear cut and buried in sand:mangrove, live oak, gulfweedrazed and replaced by thin palms—palmettos—symbols of victoryor defiance, over and overmarking this vanquished land. I returnedto a field of…
I make between my slumber and my waking,the Erebus I keep you in, still tryingnot to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow,but in dreams you live. So I try takingyou back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,my eyes open, I find you do not follow.Again and again, this constant forsaking.Again and again, this constant forsaking:my eyes…
my hands on the flowered hipsof a bright bikini. My toes dig in,curl around wet sand. The sun cutsthe rippling Gulf in flashes with eachtidal rush. Minnows dart at my feetglinting like switchblades. I am aloneexcept for my grandmother, other sideof the camera, telling me how to pose.It is 1970, two years after they openedthe…
though nothing really happened,the charred grass now green again.We peered from the windows, shades drawn,at the cross trussed like a Christmas tree,the charred grass still green. Thenwe darkened our rooms, lit the hurricane lamps.At the cross trussed like a Christmas tree,a few men gathered, white as angels in their gowns.We darkened our rooms and lit…
1969—hurricane parties,palm trees leaning in the wind,fronds blown back, a woman’s hair.Then after: the vacant lots,boats washed ashore,a swamp where graves had been.I recall how we huddledall night in our small house,moving between rooms,emptying pots filled with rain.The next day, our houseon its cinderblocks—seemedto float in the flooded yard:no foundation beneath us,nothing I could see…
Here, the river changed its course,turning away from the city as one turns,forgetting, from the past— the abandoned bluffs,land sloping up above the river’s bend—where now the Yazoo fills the Mississippi’s empty bed.Here, the dead stand up in stone, white marble,on Confederate Avenue.I stand on ground once hollowed by a web of caves;they must have…
Everywhere you go will be somewhereyou’ve never been. Try this:head south on Mississippi 49, one-by-one mile markers ticking offanother minute of your life. Follow thisto its natural conclusion – dead endat the coast, the pier at Gulfport whereriggings of shrimp boats are loose stitchesin a sky threatening rain. Cross overthe man-made beach, 26 miles of…
