The Stone Wall

Way up Magazine Street,

that’s how you said it: way up

for up the river from downtown

and the French Quarter and actually

I think it was Tchoupitoulas Street, was

the place for bands and music, F&M Patio

(no one said Fump & Manny’s), where

no one checked for IDs for beer but

you had to show your driver’s license

for mixed drinks, until the night

of the police raid (someone forgot to pay

the monthly fee?) and we tossed

the drinks and I boosted my date up

the stone wall surrounding the patio

and pulled myself up after her and we

jumped to the other side fortunately there

were too many of us to chase down and

they forgot to cover the back of the place

and good thing too because my date

was the daughter of a federal marshal and

I wouldn’t have wanted to explain

to her daddy why he had to post bail so

we ran to my car and drove off through

flashing police lights and six blocks away

when we stopped being scared we

started laughing about how fast we climbed

that stone wall. F&M reopened a few weeks

later and we were back.

This is another poem in the series about growing up in the South (New Orleans, to be specific in this case), suggested by my friend Nancy Rosback at A Little Somethin’.