LAURA WILL NOT EAT filé gumbo, no, but she watches me sip julep in the courtyard bar. It may be she is full already from the odors of mushrooms and wine floating out of kitchen doorways. But not for anything will she carry a frozen daiquiri in a plastic cup down Duval street. Not for anything will she break so much as a beignet, spatter its sugar across her silk. Tonight we will visit the cities of the dead again. If there we come across a sacrifice, some torn heap of bright feathers, then maybe she dips one finger into the blood. Maybe it stings her tongue like wet cayenne. For now she refuses the fish in its blackened mask of spices. She turns her face away. She drinks pink bougainvillaea blowing in from the square. Copyright © 1995 by AB Emrys

UNTITLED by AB Emrys

FAMOUS DIRECTORS film the poems of William Carlos Williams — Stephen King's Red Wheelbarrow: The camera zooms in tight on the wet bucket of a bright red wheelbarrow. Drops of water on it look like drops of blood. The wheelbarrow is vibrating, rocking. Suddenly it plunges downhill with the camera right behind it. The wheelbarrow seems to pull us along. White fluffy objects blip in and out too fast to see clearly. (Soundtrack: panting, loud squawks of large chickens.) There is a tremendous sense of urgency, as if everything depends on this moment. Reprinted with permission from Sun Dog Copyright © 1992 by AB Emrys