love

laissez les bon temps roulez,
that’s what she loves
about home,
how can she feel
as good so far off
the rain falls like sun
shines where home was
hurricanes spun out of rain.

She tells him all he's known
of New Orleans.
He knows nothing but here,
Seattle, a city
still so strange
he must unearth
what is his. May rain
rain down.

What songs call love
sounds frivolous
and worn. How can
a man and woman go on
if they make no bed
to lie upon, and do
what they learned with others,
and may feel the same.

It does not seem the same.
They feel a tremble rise
and shower and fall
to start all over:
laissez les bon temps
roulez . . . A new day,
baby, better than
the one before!

(30 January 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander