New Orleans

New Orleans
by Sarah Stewart

If I were white
I’d be a writer
Move to Vermont
Live in a heap of regenerating manuscripts
In a tiny attic apartment
Chain smoking clove cigarettes.

It’s unforgivably different
Being black and poor
They’ll leave you there
Tucked under brown water at the bottom of a fish bowl
In a decayed house
With ‘1 found’ sprayed on the door.