Raped at gun point by a marine on leave, a rope around your neck,
led into a field, and let go... it was me you trusted...
as dysfunctional as I was, you came to see me in New Orleans
before we camped on Pensacola Beach out of season,
then went to Disney World and Daytona
and on to The Grand Ole Opry during your nation's 200th year.
I have no idea why me, why you thought I could help,
but you did, you who taught me to paddle, and got thrown out of camp
for sleeping with me on Treasure Island the summer after our travels,
before you moved out west, before you started over,
when you needed me most, even if I am writing about it now,
even as I also wrote about it in the sections of my novel that you
approved, sent me online to find the trial information to use, but there
is still some of us unsaid, between the prose descriptions of spring
fragrances, scents that words can never bring to mind the way a single
magnolia or azalea can do on a spring day, the way that forty years of
wilderness can be crossed in a wafting breeze, carrying with it the key
of how little I did for you back then, beyond finding you
a safe place to be in New Orleans, the Mississippi
rolling all your sorrows to the delta of your dreams
while I held your hand and took you for cafe au lait and beignets,
walked us home through the Garden District under live oak
draped with Spanish moss while you healed yourself
because the only gift I ever had was hope.
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