Venice, But No Gondola

I: On the Way

He says out loud (not necessarily to me)
“If you want to see poverty, just go to Venice.”
Funny how they’re both water cities,
whether it’s Italy or Louisiana.
Instead of a gondola, I’m in a Chevy Suburban
traveling down a highway.

Houses on stilts line the roadside,
the smell of oil seems to hang
among the cars on blocks, dark swamps with bright
green algae on the surface. Natalie Merchant
wails from the car speakers, a borrowed CD.
I didn’t borrow it, the lyrics reach me anyway,
climbing over the old stone wall
I am bound for the riverside.

When I look out the window, the leather seats
seem wrong for the situation. I feel compelled
to respond to the poverty comment but don’t know
what to say and the awkward lapse inevitable
of a four hour car ride with a stranger
fills the car. Natalie sings anyway, unaware
there is nothing to say, find a place
on the riverbank
where the green rushes grow
see the wind
in the willow tree
in the branches hanging low

We reach the dock and I board a boat headed out
to the Gulf. I watch from the back deck as we push
through the heavy water and every now and then
my gaze lands on small houses, isolated
by the swamps , connected only by dilapidated
wooden docks. Later, I notice the water has cleared,
the houses are gone and ocean water laps the tall grass
all around us.

II: On the Rig

My shift will be midnight to noon. I learn
to love rising in the darkness, eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.
I learn exactly what to tell “Q” in the mornings
to have my eggs cooked just right. I learn what to call
the men. Later, I even learn their names.

I find that when the metal
and the men and the mud
become too much,
I can always find the sea.
It stretches out so far that I can no longer remember
where I might find land. At night, I forget that it’s only water;
the other rigs light the skyline as if they are outskirts
of a metropolis.

One morning, as the sun rose on the water
I noticed that the blue was being overtaken by a deeper,
darker brown. It’s the Mississippi, they tell me, even
twelve miles of water between us, it still finds the way
all the silt spilling into the gulf,
staining the blue. child it's lovely
let the river take it all away
the mad pace, the hurry
the troubles, the worries
just the river take them all away
flow away.