Louisiana by Magin LaSov Gregg

I left without

waiting for night fall,

Nanci Griffith on the radio

as if you hadn’t laid me down in live oak,

bathed me in magnolia,

murmured bienvenue,

woven moss through my hair with the patience of a mother.

As if I’d never pressed my face to your oyster shell chest,

sturdier than any barrier island,

and we never kissed beneath ancient cypress skies,

never two-stepped a hurricane, never

turned our backs to the heretical river,

incapable of staying.

I believed the lies:

East was better and

you could not give me a future,

not when your name began with lose.

I followed the highway’s lure,

promised to return, kept my word.

Each time the plane roared over Pontchartrain

I licked faded breezes from my lips,

swallowed the gulf between us, left.

You sweltering –– a swamp where nothing dies.

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@MaginLaSovGregg, lives with her husband, Carl, and four fabulous rescue pets in a slightly haunted house in Frederick, Maryland. She enjoys binge-watching "The X-Files," baking gluten-free bread, and taking long walks without the distraction of an iPhone.