The pilgrims from Kansas scoffed at your harem of pillows and ice chest and tinkling of wine glasses, Chateau Lafite nineteen eighty-six, in the basement of the Manhattan hotel.
They took you for New Yorkers, never dreaming the same accent like gunfire cut through the Irish Third Ward of New Orleans.
They didn't watch you drag the ice chest from the twenty-sixth floor, or half-carry your sister scarred from back surgery.
And you didn't offer in the candlelight that you all were New Orleans born and bred, that in one way or another you've always lived under some sort of siege.
Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, K.A. McGowan currently lives in Louisiana and teaches at Remington College. His first book, Rubric, was recently published by Puddinghouse Press.
