Siren Cryin'
She was Shreveport sitting on the front porch
that warm February Louisiana evening
When the cold, shrill code blue siren news
slowly, solemnly
serenade waltzed up the white marble steps
The municipal, official flatline sympathy greeting
was tear-tissue dryly issued
with sterile
responsibility denial
Listening with deadened emotion,
the tall, dark Cajun woman grew shorter ...
as she began to bend
lower and lower,
into the nether bowels of bereavement
Her Haitian hazel eyes softly showered
late maternal fears down on the hard, bitter red clay
And her knees were trembling
in a gulf summer breeze, Magnolia tree swaying way
She could hear the po-po siren song
of her slain son’s departing voice calling out to her
And she felt a caught crayfish moan
rising up in her pain-stricken, brokenhearted bones
Her ivory tusk memory
would clearly recall a long time later,
that it seems like she had cried a lifetime
that mournful day
And tho’ the tears have now slowly faded away,
they always return weepy fast ...
every time she hears the revolving bullet flash
of the soul-cleaving siren blast
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