poem "I am"

I am from Tony Chachere’s: black, white, and cayenne pepper mixed with salt,

settled near the greasy stove and a simmering smothered steak

and a black iron skillet on the back burner and chilly beers inside the fridge.

I am from that meager Cajun cottage kindly cooled by father water oak,

last house on the left of Broussard Street; only we not Broussard’s brood.

But I am also from Mama Cates’ carefully pruned camellia bushes

and her magnolia tree, like my grandmother herself, sharp fragrance like a brown liquided Estee Lauder .

Tree limbs remain for those who live at her house on Sunny Lane, though my Mama Cates’s are long gone

as are her Sunday dinners on fine white china we women washed by hand

 and the senior Quoyesers’ Sunday visits, their two olive martinis.  

I’m from “my dance card was always full” and “I wasn’t a wallflower.”

I danced too, Mama Cates, and I flowered from your love

but I’m no Nawlins girl.

I’m from sweating and two stepping and swilling beer at Grant Street Dance Hall,

swirling to Chenier, to Buckwheat, Beausoleil and T.K Hulin.

I love your crawfish bisque in china gumbo bowls, but my soul needs boiled crawfish on my baby brother’s cool carport.

Folding tables dressed with yesterday’s Daily Advertiser

He feeds us as you did.

One streetlight Maurice and civilized southside Lafayette; two sides, one Cajun girl, I am.