Poem #24

Mudbug Mood

I’m thinking about crawfish and the way they boil brackish in the high heat of June, seasoned spicy in a galvanized washtub with cayenne, Zatarain’s, garlic, powdered celery, onions, potatoes, branches of bay leaves, a handful of the years Granmè stopped speaking. You can’t purge crawfish, salt water soaking will kill them prematurely and we need them long suffering before plopping in corn, frozen not fresh, to regulate the temperature right until the end so you can let their corpses steep; carapace swelling fat before we brave the burn, crack open shells and place our lips on the openings to their bodies, drawing in the juices. Nuance: Loud noises are OK in polite company when sucking crawfish heads; sometimes it’s all the conversation we know how to have.

bam

#Poetry #cajun #writer #southernliterature #summer #poem #south #Writing