Bourbon Street

We walk under crenelations
of iron bars and construction, side-stepping
police roadblocks, deeper into the street, splinters
sanded off wooden balconies
high above our heads, crowds
leaning over and shouting, taunting dangling necklaces.
I'm tired and won't bare any skin, so I miss a catch at one strand of beads,
plastic gold with fish strung together.
I take it from the ground,
so it won't crunch under our feet, tips of fingers
dipping into the concrete wet
from urine and spilled drinks or flood water,
carried inside the soles of shoes, tripping, dancing, and dripping.
 
The necklace dampens my collar bones, pinches
the hair at the back of my neck.
A fifth of whiskey in the stereotypical brown paper bag,
mouth and mouth and mouth over the bottle neck.
Breaking the law without a plastic cup.
You can be dizzy drunk on the pavement
but broken glass cuts
and sticks into the bottom of flip-flops
as we walk along the streets.
 
A girl in fishnets and no shoes waits on a patch of carpet
at a doorway, all red light. She doesn't smile.
A train of drunks
wait in line at the Krystal Burger, stupor-standing,
dropping the laminated menus to the floor, again and again.
I've never heard orders for meals less brief,
the numbers and sizes of combos giggling, out of grasp.
A police officer up the white stairs.
A drunk man all stagger and teeth grin, at the end of the line,
Hey, hey,
you should shoot my friend. Because it'd be funny
if you shot my friend.
Tiny, square burgers in my fingers.
Five fries in a box. No more money.
We eat in front of the garbage can, and go.
 
A girl, prosthetic arm and test tube of blue Jaeger
takes the shot wrong, sipping instead of tilting her head.
On the street, people in dresses everywhere,
pretty sundresses fit for bonnets
in the wet, dark streets.
Kelly barters for a beaded belly dancer dress at the Voo Doo Mart,
thirty for you, twenty-five for you, you can't get
a better deal. Emaciated singer at a Bachelorette party,
rib bones, in a bar where we go to pee.
She holds a badly-painted plastic blow-up doll in an armpit, smiles
and sings rock songs
in a smoker's voice. From the bathrooms
we're pushed onto the back patio,
cigarette butts infesting the tile floor,
in the bellies of potted plants.
I suck on the blood from a chapped tear in my lip.
 
Back by 3 a.m., Kelly hiccups
as we try to sleep.
The mattress label sticks
to my sweaty-cold skin, and I tell her to shut up. And then we laugh.