Like the Memphis Queen she steams

downriver at pleasureboat speed,

the rolled umbrella of her beak

peony pink, wobbleboard gullet

dangling in fleshy bagpipe,

a flush of fresh shrimp

wooshed out of her rubber pullet.

She stalks what she sees,

takes more than she needs,

the vast bayou of her appetite

swamping catfish shuffling

in mud, minnow churn, and the small

sweet cries of sausage dogs

on the shore—there is always more,

third helpings, the plate piled high

roadside diner style as she rides

stately as a motorcade,

dips her head in salute

along the antebellum scrollwork

of the shore, fossicks and prospects

with the rude gush of her influx

and pump, sucking shellfish

into gumbo, all swallow, all hallowed,

then with a swig of ipecac

upchucks the chum to her sons.

They struggle to keep up

as she steers south, singing hymnals

and cursing Union strongholds,

coasting to her holiday home,

a lavender estuary on Key West

where she wallows each year for a stretch.

Chiefly she goes to taunt the caimans,

sliding between them like a sly catamaran,

lobbying for a crackpot annex of Texas,

suspicious of the spoonbills’ migrations,

always at war, muttering to herself,

still nursing her grievances about

the Louisiana Purchase

and the Pledge of Allegiance …