I am leaving in the night like a refugee-
packing the heirlooms, the jewels,
the silver teaspoon, the samovar, the violin.
The tiny objects I pick up and put down,
leaving behind a lock of whitened hair,
curled in a velvet box around a ring
hammered into two hands clasping.

A night and a half ago I was stepping off
my seventh plane back into the hellish
New Orleans swelter. Finally home after
more than 24 hours of travel except I had
no keys, and no one home to let me in..
I climbed up on top of my friend’s
big lug of a van, and then onto his shoulders-
clambering over the balcony railing and inside.

All the plants brought in from the verandah
have transformed our parlour into
an enclosed jungle, a hothouse for
taxidermy and broken glass.
Minute green anoles leap from leaf
to leaf, shocked at finding themselves
suddenly in a strange and stuffy new world.

I leave at midnight. I am packed, the faulty
shutters bolted- little good that it will do.
I distract myself with this, and that- or I will
go on packing my treasures, irreplaceable
and beckoning from every shelf. Six bodies
in one car and I’m far over my baggage limit.

I wonder if I am looking on my home for the last time.
I know I can’t do this anymore- fleeing from
tempestuous juggernauts out of a crumbling teacup.
Please let this be melodrama, please spare my
obstinate and resolute loved ones who won’t leave.
Please don’t obliterate my city. Swerve, damn you.