I am an American woman, but here,
here in this city that gave us jazz and
gumbo and Tennessee Williams, I do not
fly a free bird. Memory can clip angel wings.
Willy does the hand jive on every corner,
hucksters and buskers hustle for quarters, and
women with chains heavier than mine offer a
taste of paradise in the house of the rising sun.
You think you can be a visitor in my life
but you don't know how difficult that may be.
The chains I wear, made of seaweed, will tighten
