Thank you for the boudin and the view of the plains
I’d forgotten what freedom felt like.

Thank you for the reminders – I like my fingernails shiny
my catfish blackened and cracklins fresh on a February morn.

Thank you for the dances and wooden floors,
fresh young voices floating off the stage,
Intoxication of mind and senses
set straight so many strange paths in my mind.

Without you, there would be no
red shoes, short curls
silly t-shirts or big earrings.
half of myself, for sure.

Thanks for the heat and the sweat
and the dips in cool cold water,
where children become fish
and fear stays at bay.

Thank you for cradling
my mother in your grasses
and keeping the breeze
fresh through her chimes.

I built a nest and left my love
upon a corner of two buildings
Felt a stranger in another once my home
but walked boldly between them all on naked toes.

So many things to chasten you over,
but the tide will stay as it is
because false traditions fell apart
and finally the shallow brown water moved.

There rose myself, like never before,
the moment I came through the back door.

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