IN WHITE SHEETS WAITING

Was that a wink and then the piano began playing an old gospel blues song from so long ago, so far in my past and down a lonely dirt road in a place where sour weed we chewed and the cicada sang in the shadows of hibiscus and flowering myrtle.

Melodies blossomed in the humid Carolina night and then blew through the screens of someone’s, somewhere back porch resting place, where a newly stained battleship gray pine board porch graced a seaside home within this heart burning memories deep beneath my soul of a past now gone where innocence from another time remained lost.

It was almost like I was somewhere, maybe here before, but alone, without pretensions.

Looking,

Looking,

Knowing that she was near and hoping that this time I had arrived in destiny, on point and with a spirit willing,
But the music still played and everyone in this moment still danced.

Like the heartbeat that kept Ms. Holiday on stage, her morphine holding her slender body draped in black, steady but slurred,
Tonight was a mystery to those who went down to the river to pray leaving past sins in waters washed towards God’s sea seeking salvation promised by the pounding fist of our pastor and cleansing souls from sin committed just today,
Or the night before.

1920 was the year and that pimp banged out tunes on ivory from some place in the sunrise which lifted crushed hearts of lovers soon one and then abandoned in this nightly ritual.

Now when was least expected silence drifted past the wide yawning birth in life’s harbor releasing savage thoughts and horrid memories from the past which melted dark moonless nights where a thousand searing white stars fell from heaven in silence.

Tonight like every night the whiskey poured freely on Duval Street and we watched as he-she’s pranced by outside, hoping some unexpected soul might mistake their nightmare concealed in obscurity and dime store face paint, as something of beauty.

Private cues held in chalked hands, razors in socks for safety, we bonded within the darkness of our souls and the history of our ancestors long forgotten and turned centuries before into dust.

Vigilance was our soul mate and we held our families close, tight and in guilt huddled in that one room roach infested shotgun staged shack called home.

Hungry when work was short and alone for those who mates and children had left in frustration or through death they sat, staring at the stars in the sky asking God to spare each soul the pain taking them from this place into a dreamland filled with honey and promise, safety and opportunity.

A place where the waters of the spirit cleanse minds and wash all that is evil into ditches of mud drying beneath the hot bright golden light of July.

“Can’t you see the water” she asked as I pulled her from the fires of hell? “Can’t you see the windows and His people asking for me to stand up and come?”