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Neighbors
and Invaders
By Mackie Blanton
Along my inner
right thigh
the stealth of
teeth or pincers
or stingers
unsuspectingly
has
invaded poisoned
stiffened
my musculature.
An expected
self-effacing
Southern Male
I have quietly
endured the stale
pain for five
weeks now
bowed by grim
armature;
first before
leaving the US
and now here, at
a sidewalk café,
bending beneath
lemon trees over memories,
a cappuccino and
chocolate-covered nuts,
at best each
night believing it would lift,
at last
surrendering to my massages
and caresses.
This
unneighborly incursion
happened I
suppose six weeks
or so ago
(What do I know
of such things?)
on my own
Louisiana land
somehow
somewhere
among the debris
and rubbish
splintered
from the womb
and maw and tresses
of a sweetly
named hurricane.
All I have
sought here
was an
antibiotic salve
bought in
halting Turkish
at an Ankara
pharmacy.
I have hope now
here in Izmir
that the balm,
absorbed below crusting pus,
will work
miracles beneath the skin:
a sleuth to
match
my silence
an experimenter
to match
my risk-taking
a problem solver
warrior to match
my visitor’s love
for the terrain
and plains
of the daughters
and sons
of conquerors.
I am kept awake
at night
however both by
the pain
setting up camp
just above my
knee
and by images
entrenched
along my brain
of a suffering
worse than my
own
(unless of
course poisoned
I am dying): of
those abandoned
homeless or dead
along
America’s Gulf Coast
by an
indifferent loveless wind
with a comely
name: Katrina.
But let’s put
all of this aside;
for more than
all of this,
my personal
concern for self
and others has
been diminished
by the disgust
and enmity
hardening my
heart.
For my life, for
our lives along the Gulf,
have been
embalmed by the caresses
of quacks
shysters and hucksters
not by the
pummeling of
sudden war or
famine or suicide bombers
but by the greed
and slight of neighbors
massaging their
pockets purses and wallets.
There are no
words now
sublime enough
to distract us
from thieves,
from the truth
about men and women
who have not
led,
nor even to
divert our aim
away from their
target heart.
When was I
bitten or stung
exactly?
Was it when I
hung out mildew
on tree trunks
in the sun light
so that my
clothes could air
dry out smell
fresh again?
Was it when I
fell to my knees,
lay down on
toxic pavement,
exhausted
from rushing
through the swampy
stench and mold
of living room bed room
study,
retrieving possessions things
I would do
better to learn to live without?
When were we
fooled and betrayed
exactly?
Was it when we
first opened a book
about union
unity liberty good citizenship?
The Dream?
Or was it that
second book
often read at
mother’s knee
about belief
community compassion
forgiveness?
Again, The
Dream.
Those books from
my home,
now heaped at
the curbside,
besogged with
unseen toxicity,
hidden warfare
inherent duplicity,
surrender their
ink and evasive stains
to the evening
air.
Take pictures
and save receipts,
adjusters tell
us. My neighbor,
an amateur
photographer, will flit
here and there
in most of the
neighborhoods of
dead zones and
ruin – Flick!
Flick! Snap! Snap! –
and frame his
takes for an eventual
one man opening
at a fine French
restaurant, with
wine cheese and
chocolate-covered ants.
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