Betsy Robin Schwartz

In Natchez it's another melting day

like butter on grits

slow, lazy, still and steadfast

you can see magnolia trees

hung with Spanish moss

you can feel the air

hung with humidity

you can see the drawling merchants of Pine Street

who don't want a King on their street

you can see antebellum mansions

sentries watching the Mississippi

tended by Daughters of Dixie

(not Schwartz's or shvartzes)

you can see the ghosts of gray marble slabs with stars

from atop the levee

showing their faces to the river

you can see Celia Harris washing her hands

outside the iron cemetery gates

She's kissed the graves of the Levites

She tends her own gardens.