Madame Broussard, Who Rents and Cooks

The musician lingers at his table
and wants, I suspect, the old stories,
those tales my grandmother told me.
He has been bitten by this land

and now he walks in a fever,
plays in his fever. I have seen the look
in his eyes before, windows onto a place
as wide as the sky over the marsh.

He waits like a pup for scraps
from the mysterious
girl in the marsh, daughter
of the sun god. He must

have seen her, and now he looks
for her again. My words will not find her
for him, and no amount of sense
will free him from this spell.

But I make the beef stew on Sundays,
wrap a wedge of cheese for him
when he takes his long walks
along the ponds, the Bois.

When he opens that fancy case,
takes out his violin, draws
the notes out with melancholy,
I will hear her song in his song.