MEMPHIS
1977

I flee into 
Egypt the night after death
                        shatters the leader's skull
I
follow the leader into the Land of Death
I am no longer kind or decent
        standing  on the banks of the Mississippi, the
        Major Aorta

I will look
I will not crouch in the lunchroom head between my knees

The family torn to shreds It went
east it went south it went
west it went north
                :They flee from me who is arrived and stands outside
                One woman in her changingsex
                One donkey
                One pale horse
                The Light of the Fifth World
                The daughter of Marie
This
City the barge carries flat on its back

The mouth they are
looking for the mouth
That atom That
warning That
unforgiving voice in the burning bush

                They walk away They flow like a river
                without looking back
Oysters and bad teeth
        Soybeans, rice and
        beyond the floodplains, the missile silos of Damascus



My friend
Boy preacher from the other side
Grew up to be a doctor
He wore his grandfather's suit
He married Lily from Marked Tree
                In a cold spring
                in Memphis he pocketed his hands
                and walked the Esplanade and raised paper boats that
                sailed away
He told me I'd meet women       
wouldn't dance they loved the Lord so much

I came during
Rush hour
My beige automobile crossing blueblack bridges,
Bluer Blacker rivers
I left my eye to the pink dolphin of a crescent moon
Rocking in the sky over Crittendon County

My father worked this territory as a
Salesman for Fuller Brush
He saw the children of Arkansas stand up to
Governor Faubus on the
steps of Central High
He sat in the dark with the Pharoahs of Beale Street
and moaned
His lips pressed tight as if he
blew that horn himself



Greer Garson 
beguiled them
here on the river
Her sad mathematical madonna birthing
god from pitchblende
                        :Radium accelerates the cities
                        even in the slow rum of the 
                        delta
        See how quickly and easily she radiates through water?
        translucent as the White Rock girl

The lady with the blue lamp wanders the length of the 
country but this pulse coursing 
quickening 
is her ever-lasting heart

My child died here
My child turned stone and dangerous
The cotton and memory grew thinner

The boy preacher told me
Save a body
Save a soul

He said It's not that I like it
        They insist on whoopin' and hollerin'

I walked the park long and green
The African Methodist Episcopalians spread their baskets by the pink museum

Each year they prayed the river wouldn't drown them
Each year they stood outside the Land of The Dead
mourning imaginary pyramids

He and Lily 
Nights they dined on river bottom
Butterfly stung by a bee

The 
ionized air   

hums like telephone wire

there's more chance of earthquake here than in
San Francisco
                and the Birth of the Blues is a ring of fire
                surrounded by smoke
        I drive this way
        detoured off 1-40
                        Cotton Plant
                        Des Arc Augusta
Tracing  
        The St. Francis River 
        into Marked Tree where an old woman feeds me pie, coffee
        and the names of neighbors who might be interested in
        organizing
                There's miles between each door, and I am the stranger
                But the women open them to my belly
                The women turn talking O I told you I dreamed last night
                                        of fish jumping the river
        (where the statelines of Arkansas and Tennesee become
        one with the Mississippi)

We cook chickens until they
fall off the bones
Everybody claims some Cherokee blood
                        First we get em all registered
                        then we get em to sign against Right to Work

I rub hips with the other women at the
sink after supper
They tell me a lot of babies get born when the river rises

                The house of their king more beautiful than Graceland
                The house of their king builds and falls   

You heard of the
Yaller witch left her skin on the floor by the fireplace each night

You heard of the Bell Witch moaning at the foot of his bed

                - When you dream you no longer belong to yourself
You heard of Evangeline
                        swims every river haunts every man
Hindsight proves an Angel of Death came this way

Through the little 
Hatchie River
                Crossing the Hernando de Soto Bridge
                Two islands green as twilight
                Black Saint and Sinner Lady passing a
                beaker and a horn between them

                Snaring the biblical moment

The old man stood with his back to the piano
        played fluegelhorn each arm tight to his side

You heard The Lady's in Love With You
I sat in the dark counting kings

We were here and the stage was
right over there
        The Angel of Death swam the Hatchie
        came up Ten Mile Bayou in West Memphis

        Had come this way before

Madame Curie is dead a
long time alive with radioactivity
Her teeth travel the world like an echo
When she gets to her heart she bites down
and the old men
sail to France to play their horns
Between-jobs music
true and invisible enough to
burn the players into another existence 

A
Lot of 
        35 to 40
                White women their
                Hair still in curlers stood with
                Their back to the parked cars and wailed

This king don't ride no pony this king
Death becoming famous as it becomes perpetual
                        Taking over the
                        Radio, the offices of the
                        Press-Scimitar

We went to the movies day after Elvis died.
It was
        Last Tango in Paris
        August and hot and air you could wring
The hort horns of France
Homesick        making music    said nothing
                The preacher told me You don't know Elvis I'll tell you
                He came in to the restaurant where my aunt worked
                He called her over she thought there was
                trouble with the check. He called my aunt a nigger

A lot of
white women
Sun mourned The
Blue River people went inside their houses
                35 to 40
        Got Very Drunk and
                Hysterical said the Commercial Appeal
        At Birth of the Blues at The Plantation and The
                                Cotton Club
Whole tables singing I
                        Can't 
                        Help
                        Falling in Love
                        With 
                        You

In River City old things happen again and again
                The Angel of Death knocked on my door
        
        The river rose
        My water broke
Too soon
Winter comes
Everything dies back
The night searates into many gods

        I fed the baby garlic so I
        could see her in the dark
The
flood waters receded
There was trouble
                in Rose Bud
You drove north that night
I slept with sister morphine
                They scraped the circumference of my womb like mother did to
watermelon at pickling time

                        I said I go door to door asking is there anything wrong?
                Police.
           They put them in the car,
        Beat them all the way to the station.

The night separated into many gods
                                The nurse said all I'd talk about was
                                brutality
and Japan
        : They love jazz there

        The survivors close their eyes
        They hear the horns
        and the moment before the horns
The house disappears as does the river
The child in the bullrushes is never found
A flood of light swallows the bayous

                For a moment a well
                and all the dark water drawn up
                The gods of the night take the sickness into themselves