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Before the ninth ward was still a wreck
with water to the rafters in declared disaster
I was born nearby you in Bywater—
waterborne or so the neighbor heard
in a neighborhood by the bayou
but not born on it.

Anyone with a tablecloth became a crusading caper
and I was seen with novels written in comic sans;
the novelties of floral-print capes worn
from the scruff of my collar to my cuffs

made age seem to wane like a bad wristwatch
and history’s seams waxed prophetic to the tune of 1965.

That was when the street urchins discovered a local pet,
took Schrodinger’s cat out of the box
and put the cat into a burial bag.

Betty, upset and winded, howled to Katrina
that whether we observed it or not,
a cat still had to die and didn’t deserve it.

That’s why
adulthood decided to concede
with the fullness of floodwaters
and the spitefulness of Christians
confiscating the cross from Romans
and crafting it into Americana.

From ninth ward to psych ward,
you didn’t matter to me in my mid-adolescent ascension

because my assent was earned by wearing
your heart in a sheath and a blade under your sleeve
and I would still drop you.

Somewhere between the graffiti in the underpass
and the ambulance with the highest high water marks
I just got it.

I was crusading sans comics.