Tobi Alfier

Heading Home

LaLa Cherie lived in a dump
of an apartment on a side street
in the French Quarter. Her granny,
mum, and the odd cousin or three
had air mattresses and got eyes-up close
with an occasional cockroach or mouse,
nothing they ain’t seen before.

LaLa got teased bigtime in school,
her drag name fighting like hell
with straight A’s, participation in every club
you could conjure, and a place on the special
student/faculty board to help solve problems
and keep every drug from mouth or vein. Too many kids
had died, and a teacher or two, it wasn’t right.

When granny passed, LaLa kept it so far inside
no one would ever know and she’d never tell.
She passed by Marie Laveau’s heading home
from school, bought some safe-travel stones
to string upon her neck and that was that.
She rolled up her cuffs, waded into the Mississippi
far down from the docks, blessed the old woman

ten times by always, then came home
to help with supper. LaLa made cornbread.
Mum made red beans and rice.
They threw in a ham hock in honor of gran,
keeper of the budget and all things costing
a dollar or more. A couple extra cousins came,
gran’s place at the table stayed set and bare,

and the late sun sank hard into dusk.

Tobi Alfier is published nationally and internationally. Credits include War, Literature and the Arts, The American Journal of Poetry, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Washington Square Review, Cholla Needles, The Ogham Stone, Permafrost, Gargoyle, Arkansas Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others.  She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).