Prose
By
Jeff Mann ©1996
Ghost and Vampire Tour, New Orleans
At dusk we congregate
about Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop,
those for whom reality's
insufficient,
daylight's average. The guide
passes out
some joke-garlic, a wooden stake,
leads
us by lamplight all about the
Quarter.
Here's Madame Lalaurie's, where the
cries
of chained slaves still startle
the living; the Sultan's retreat,
site of a mysterious massacre;
Miriam's Voodoo Temple, with her
sleepy snake, icons of Urzuli
and Baron Samedi, offerings of rum;
Marie Laveau's old home, where
an eldritch fire claimed the
present owner.
And this alleyway, where the bodies
of two men were found hanging,
drained of blood. The Anne Rice
fans
lap at this: what we came for.
In a Rampart Street bar we take a
break.
A few blocks up the street the dead
are baking like bread in their oven
tombs--
St. Louis Cemetery #1--somewhere
nearby Christ is stripped to the
waist,
nailed down in marble, somewhere
nearby the night jasmine blooms,
the shriveled resurrection fern
waits for rain. I order a
Hurricane-
to-go--decadence cheap and
legal--deep red
with grenadine, the juice of
Persephone's
pomegranate, the ruby seeds the
dead
break spurtingly between their
teeth.
In a deep lounge chair I settle
back
amidst the other chatting tourists,
and
I study him: khaki shorts, white
t-shirt,
black vest. Wavy dark hair,
Mediterranean
eyes, Vandyke beard, the hoop of
his earring
glinting, glinting the black gloss
of his
forearm hair. Heartbeat like a
solemn
voodoo drum. I veil my stare, sip
the Hurricane, fish out the
maraschino
cherry, close my eyes
and nip --
Against his thrashing,
I force him down, clamp his mouth.
His eyes are wet--moonlight
misting the bottom of a well,
onyx mirrors. I smile and smooth
his eyebrows. Beneath my tongue
the hair of his chest is Spanish
moss,
his nipples are azalea buds,
the fur of his buttocks riverweed.
Beneath my tongue, the unshaven
stubble
of his neck is the salty black grit
of volcanic sand. Bruises are
constellations inverted--points
of black against a pale dropcloth.
Now the taste of rust. And this
welling,
welling, a heartbeat caught beneath
my teeth....
"Time to go!" yells the
guide above some
vulgar jukebox beat. I wipe my
beard,
flip the cherry stem into the
ashtray,
rise, follow my victim out. Over
the gypsum-
white cemetery wall, the white moth
flits,
follows the scent of night-blooming
jasmine.
Finds the flower, buries its head,
itself,
in the frayed white petals,
sips--blessed,
blessed--hovers and purrs and sips.
___________________
Jeff Mann grew up in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. He has published in Kestrel, Iris, Amethyst, The Laurel Review, Kinesis, Antietam Review, Christopher Street, Poet Lore, The James White Review, and The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, with poems upcoming in Prairie Schooner, Blackwater Review, and Sulphur River Literary Review. He teaches Appalachian Studies, Southern literature and creative writing at Virginia Tech.