Savannah

City of hot hibiscus of dark magnolia, secretive stiff and glossy-leaved she offers her sleek ivory chalices of nectar, of sweet ambrosia enticing the enamored little gods, buzzing City of live oak, wise and gnarled grandfathers or ancient maidens with dry, mossy hair that gathers in clumps on damp sidewalks Cemeteries strewn with lichen-tinged gravestones red cedar and palm

The city is heavy dripping with beauty an outdated gentility pastel mansions—faded façades like old faces watching the streets with haughty, black-shuttered eyes its tourists and schoolchildren and vagrants A city of humid ghosts of grime and sweat elegance and grit black wrought iron gates high bricked walls, hiding gardens dense with fragrant foliage, weeping with dew It has always just rained, or is about to rain, fogged windows, city of piss puddles, of linen-clad gentlemen, white rocking chairs languish on tiered balconies, crowds gather near art galleries limp, sagging palms— charming, exotic giants, hydrangeas gossip at the edges of streets, ornamental flowers hanging in baskets, fuchsia and tangerine, ferns burst from grimy corners, orange mushrooms sprout between catalpa roots, fans stir hot air purposelessly on damaged screen porches, a city of marble fountains, of graceful statues sickly wet, perspiring sweat resides on the backs necks, between breasts A city cultivated, refined, yet unkept, disheveled underneath, like a well-dressed elderly couple who have not quite lost their minds, but keep combing their hair, wearing ties, high heels, lipstick, keeping a semblance of respectability, although they are not far from the grave

The sky lives closer to the earth here, lies heavily upon it, it hangs in dense greyness, perpetually on the verge of tears City littered with thin, ragged men blacker than soil, glistening shrouded in empty street corners, on park benches emaciated, strung-out, ruined faces we avoid their eyes these descendants of slaves left to wander among the flowers and the garbage with their blistered feet and dirty plastic bags roving ghosts, grey-green wisps of souls like Spanish moss with drowned eyes, or eyes hardened like bark of palmetto palm, lost men, invisible men stand blankly beneath the rain each with his own heartbreak, his lament, carrying his fierce wound an island of elegance enclosed, surrounded by a marsh of poverty seeping in at its edges decaying bungalows of wood or brick, fungus-smeared the humidity weighing them down, the earth seducing them back to soil moist degeneration rust-weeping mobile homes which we think are abandoned but, no—inhabited hung on backyard clothes lines, mold grows on towels that never dry crumbling asphalt chain-linked fences serve as sieves for detritus, for plastic bottles and tin cans weeds and gravel and gas stations waffle houses and cigarette depots turtles crushed on roadsides And further out—an eternity of dilapidated farm houses isolated, burning in glazed marshes of green, of gold bleak, never-ending highways reedy, brown swamps salt marshes spotted with white egrets where alligators may or may not lurk thunderstorms perpetually approaching vicious purple clouds gather in dramatic heaps above the harbor where cheerful tugboats depart an ocean liner like a beached whale, waiting to begin its journey across the seas

This city, thick with new life, bursting, burgeoning green-black plants erupt, overflowing from corners, coquettish blossoms seduce thirsty butterflies plants sprout up and hang down spring leaves quiver in ecstasy the dawn’s dewy grass, lustful amniotic, feverishly yearning to life Yet a city aging, ancient, unmoved for generations, with its great-grandchildren wandering and dying within its bosom this city of phantoms, of shadow vines, foliage that grows furtively overnight swallowing the shameful history of men beauty covering old sins a town laden with memory, city of sorrow, of a lovely sickness, deep and damp