masquerade.

i've been to new orleans. i've ridden in carriages with storytellers. i've met graves and ghosts and voodoo queens. i've eaten strange new foods, including an alligator, escargot, and soft-shell crabs. i drank in the oldest building in the country, a place that slants to the side and is lit only by candles and is owned by a blacksmith and a pirate. i've learned something about what religion should do to a country, but i was not allowed into a church. i drank absinthe and i visited the house of the rising sun. i bought four masks. three are venetian in red and gold and black and white: an eye mask, one with an old man's nose, and a harlequin mask. the fourth is from the shop where heronnoire sells hers, although she did not make it. it is a blue lady with a bird, a peacock or a crow, on her brow, its tail her crown. i threw no beads, nor did i merit any, but i found horns and candles and mirrors and an amazon's breast. i read about punch and judy, and i found antiques and statues and old clothes, and i felt like a cat. i got quite drunk and i made a friend, an unhappy waiter who longs to run away to argentina and encourages branding. i met racism, classism, and homophobia, and fought them when i could. i saw children whose stories i do not know. i missed my girlfriend terribly, but i've since come home and made up for lost time as best as i could. where have you gone since i've seen you last?

what is a hobgoblin?

is it midsummer again already? i wore horns and very little clothing, and i lit a bonfire on my sidewalk and recited bits of shakespeare, reconstructing memory with friends and the people with whom i live. we feasted on corn and meat and lies and mangoes and pineapples and ice cream and the flesh of the dead. now i smell like almonds and pepper and cloves, and i'm growing my horns again and going to bed. dream well, lords and ladies. goodnight.