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Spanish moss hangs from immemorial oaks
Throws shadows on uneven porches.
White planks race nowhere.
Gin is silver, still without the yolk.
Dark water born of balmy island air
Makes one man sick, while another turns the wheel toward home.
The hurricane comes to undress boats.
A white pearl rolls down a flower’s throat.
The sidewalk gets behind your eye,
But the medicine in tins and glass
Uncorks the fury across the street.
A mosquito stops to give his line,
“Look the other way for Jean Lafitte.”
A leg of ham unhangs itself
And waits for the blood to flow again.
Behind a veil green oysters keep their secret damp,
While the moccasin clutches her iron map.
The oldest room in the country.

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* 'immemorial' stolen from Emerson, Poe and Eliot.