Memphis Blues

Maybe Memphis—I went there
once in the fall, but it was still
90 degrees. And they have barbeque
and blues music and more fried-chicken
than the stars in the sky. I could watch
the barges float by the absurd glass pyramid
and think mellon collie like it was nostalgia.

Do you remember the time
Huck saw the house floating in the river?
I wonder where all those homes and barns ended up—
some col de sac in Louisiana where kids skateboard oblivious
of the history under plastic siding? Or, more likely
splintered in the mud with catfish and eels
disintegrated into bottom.

They say trying to swim to
Arkansas is committing suicide. I remember looking
across from a bluff. Arkansas didn’t seem all that bad.