New Orleans

          This is the south. I look for evidence

          of other Creeks, for remnants of voices,

          or for tobacco brown bones to come wandering

          down Conti Street, Royale, or Decatur.

          Near the French Market I see a blue horse

          caught frozen in stone in the middle of

          a square. Brought in by the Spanish on

          an endless ocean voyage he became mad

          and crazy. They caught him in blue

          rock, said

                         don’t talk.

          I know it wasn’t just a horse

                                           that went crazy.

          Nearby is a shop with ivory and knives.

          There are red rocks. The man behind the

          counter has no idea that he is inside

          magic stones. He should find out before

          they destroy him. These things

          have memory,

                                you know.

          I have a memory.

                                     It swims deep in blood,

          a delta in the skin. It swims out of Oklahoma,

          deep the Mississippi River. It carries my

          feet to these places: the French Quarter,

          stale rooms, the sun behind thick and moist

          clouds, and I hear boats hauling themselves up

          and down the river.

          My spirit comes here to drink.

          My spirit comes here to drink.

          Blood is the undercurrent.

          There are voices buried in the Mississippi

          mud. There are ancestors and future children

          buried beneath the currents stirred up by

          pleasure boats going up and down.

          There are stories here made of memory.

          I remember DeSoto. He is buried somewhere in

          this river, his bones sunk like the golden

          treasure he traveled half the earth to find,

          came looking for gold cities, for shining streets

          of beaten gold to dance on with silk ladies.

          He should have stayed home.

                                              Creeks knew of him for miles

                                                  before he came into town.

                                                     Dreamed of silver blades

                                                        and crosses.

          And knew he was one of the ones who yearned

          for something his heart wasn’t big enough

          to handle.

                              (And DeSoto thought it was gold.)

          The Creeks lived in earth towns,

                                                               not gold,

                         spun children, not gold.

          That’s not what DeSoto thought he wanted to see.

          The Creeks knew it, and drowned him in

                        the Mississippi River

                                 so he wouldn’t have to drown himself.

          Maybe his body is what I am looking for

          as evidence. To know in another way

          that my memory is alive.

          But he must have got away, somehow,

          because I have seen New Orleans,

          the lace and silk buildings,

          trolley cars on beaten silver paths,

          graves that rise up out of soft earth in the rain,

          shops that sell black mammy dolls

          holding white babies.

          And I know I have seen DeSoto,

                                        having a drink on Bourbon Street,

                                        mad and crazy

                                        dancing with a woman as gold

                                        as the river bottom.