April 2020, New Orleans

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke.

—“the general prologue,” the canterbury tales

Not big on pilgrimages, yet this fever driftsfrom house to house. One leaky pirogue, adrift,empty, listing to one side, on the bayou.I look inside my neighbor’s yellow house—joyof a yellow house, shades up, rainbows chalkedon the walkway under a palm’s moving shade,palm where monk parakeets nest. I play likeit’s mine: my neighbor’s breakfast nook, the playpen,a last cold bite. A friend was topping off my glasslast night when a rolling violin solo, a show tune,woke me. Here prone is transitive: to roll the sickonto their stomachs so they breathe. Transitory stringsreceded down the avenue. Above night transit,lighter now, night birds sang—yes, we hear you again.I sang along: Maskmaker, maskmaker, make me . . .not a carnival mask on one you don’t know you knowuntil they’re in you: breathy sobriquet, dark alcove,the Quarter. No, the other kind of mask so we breathefor centuries, alone. Today I walk through another Aprilshower under April canopies where my thoughtsfootnote old lines: Whan that April . . . Parish pilgrimsarrive on winds, on foot, by bike, by car, by bus,by streetcar. Nowhere to be, no intercessor, Ijoin them. We roam the neutral ground, weeping,scrolling news on screens that light our masks,so many magnolia petals, our hair the wind scrolls.