"Come Back" - Elsa Russo
I can
finally hear her voice on the wind
On the backs
of a crow she calls to me
Come back,
come back, come back to me
Come back to
the place that you still call home
In your most
secret thoughts
Come back to
the place where you were born
Come back,
come back to me
My first
mistress calls me
From the
backs of a mockingbird
Come back,
come back, come back to me
You know
you’ve been missing the smell of the city
Something
replicated nowhere else
The smell of
salt water, heat, cigarettes
Booze and
sex and secrets long held tight
You miss it,
you know you miss it
Just come
back to me
My
unattainable Madonna
Calls to me
from the backs of a hawk
Come back,
come back, come back to me
To the place
where voodoo and Catholicism
Live in
harmony, side by side
You visit
the priestess on Saturday
Then go to
confession on Sunday
You pray at
the altar of the music of our souls
Dance away
from the graveyard to the beats of drum and brass
Just come
back, come back to me
My beautiful
and broken vision of my first love
Calls to me
from the backs of a pelican
Far too out
of his native land to be an accident
Come back!
she screams, Come back to me!
My long-lost
child, my prodigal daughter
Why do you
resist the fire in your blood?
Why do you
worry and fret and delay?
Do you not
love me anymore?
Do I no
longer cause your mind to dream and your heart to sing?
Why this
resistance? Why do you protest?
Come back,
my child come back to me
My first
lover
She calls to
me from the backs of a water moccasin
Stealthily
climbing up my leg
Come back,
she whispers, come back to me
I infected
you long ago
And I am the
only antidote for the poison that kills you
I can feel
it when you shiver and shake in the night
Dying for
the medicine that only I have
So why do
you resist so?
Why do you
waste away in torment?
Just come
back, come back to me
I lift the
snake from my leg to my shoulder
Let it’s
bayou cooled skin ease my fevered flesh
I can’t come
back, I whisper softly, I don’t know what I’ll find there
Haven’t you
heard? she whispers patiently
Haven’t you
heard what the others have said?
They have
been here and while things always change
There are
things that are always the same
I am still
yours, I still feed and tend to many
I am still
the one you fell in love with, why do you fear me so?
Because it
sounds like sweet lies, I reply
Like the
lies my mother told me
Everything
will be fine, everything is fine, right before they die
People die,
things change, and things will not always be alright
But that is
no reason to hide and keep from returning to me
I am always
here, and I will always be this
I will
always be the one who first caught your heart
And caused
the blood in your veins to rise
So tell me
and try to explain, why do you fear me so?
I walked
into a room and saw a woman I knew
And she no
longer had the ability to recognize me
I fear
walking back to you so much, the two times I have been close,
I have not
dared to walk out of the bus station doors
I fear the
day I walk onto your streets
And you will
not be the same, you will not feel the same,
You will not
look at me the same way and you will not be the mistress I fell in love with
You will not
be my New Orleans
You will be
something else, and I cannot abide that again
The crow
caws, the mockingbird sings, the hawk swoops, the pelican screams and the water
moccasin bites
Come back,
come back, come back, come back,
They all
chant as the poison rushes into my veins again
Come back to
your mistress, come back to your one true love
Come back to
the Mississippi, come back to Louisiana, come back to New Orleans
Come back to
the only place you have ever really called home
Let me heal
your soul and draw the poison from your blood
Let me
cradle you in soft music and soothe you with lullabies of the river
Come back,
come back, come back to me
I slip into
fevered dreams of night and river and sea
I feel the
thick arms of a Louisiana mother wrap around me
I smell the
richness in the air
I taste the
food cooking on the stove
I hear the
band playing outside
And I know
One can only
resist the call of one’s first love
For so long
And soon,
very soon
I will be
going back to her
I will go back to New Orleans