WELCOME TO THE SITUATION
[WOLDENBERG PARK, NEW ORLEANS]
Dear John, it isn't all misery and rot.
Sometimes it is enough just to let
your body drop. At the Catholic guesthouse
all the men working the front desk
were named Michael, protect us in battle
avowed, you can lose your religion no more
than you can your word for home.
A place I abandoned, or abandoned me, or knew not
how to come back to, what was the threat I still fought,
what wound would wend. And then
we're both still alive. And then
we're walking along the gaudy Mississippi
in a second line, survivors from the front. The water
has unfrozen to throw us a party before it throws
down the levees reminders we can't always
control everything hence the drink in the glass
old-fashioned jazz Gabriel trumpets out a tune
laden there your lithe wish persist, persist
TYPO
33
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