I Stop Trusting Saint Anthony When, Prayer for Another Hurricane Season from Afar, & Here Come the Girls
Stacey Balkun
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I Stop Trusting Saint Antony When
a wave knocks your dad’s Ray Bans
into the surf and they never resurface
despite our haphazard prayers.
I steeple my sunburned hands
around a can and hope for the best
but can we even ask for more?
He’s already brought us a surprise
sea turtle in the clear Gulf water,
an IPA named Reef Donkey,
showed me the glint of the knife clipped
to the pocket of your shorts.
He found a moment for us, standing
all the way up on paddleboards
above the turquoise waters looking
for a manatee, for the deep teal
of a cormorant’s eye hunting, cracked
beers warming in the May air long
before sunset and when that drop
finally comes, I’ll drag my foot
through the sand damp at the edge
of the surf to see a dozen sparks.
I won’t panic this time, expecting
the luminescence to flash across
the sand—on the beach itself—
and then I’ll know that it’s you
who can make magic where once
there was none. Not a saint
but you who brings it forth
from its nest deep in the white dunes.
My palms blistering, an awful tag
itching out the side of my blue bikini—
there’s always something
that needs to be cut. Now,
if you told me the wind was right,
I’d board any sailboat with no hesitation.
I’d cast a line out under the bridge, believing
the fish are where you say. What I’m trying
to tell you is that I’ve found a way to trust
you, even with the current pulling hard,
sweeping away whatever treasures
were buried deep in our pockets
for safekeeping, nudging us out
into the open. We will find
our balance in our own way. I know it.
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Prayer for Another Hurricane Season from Afar
Chaos is a luxury that Louisiana summers can’t afford. For us,
the solemn order of counting cans, candles, and AA batteries.
By now, I should be stocked up on sandbags and bottled water
but here I am, in the arid hills of Umbria, climbing up a cascade
hand-made by Romans, far from my city below sea level.
There is at least one waterfall near there, somewhere
northwest, a few hours from home, and I vow to find it
next time I have to evacuate. Here, I search every cathedral
for the Saint Medardus, patron of safety in storms.
His feast day falls a week into hurricane season and so
for the first seven days of June, we collect our offerings.
What I have this year: four wooden ladders lashed to the ceiling
until harvest time. A slice of blood orange. A sweating glass.
Here, I remembered to shut the heavy shutters before the heat
of the day, but it would still be a mistake to name me
most virtuous girl of the year. I’m no Rosière but I can
attempt to resurrect your procession. Medardus, protect us
from the weather by way of Campari spritz,
by way of hiking waterfalls just to find the café hidden
at the top. Hand me your crown of a dozen roses, the old silver
whistle and I’ll do whatever it is I’m supposed to do, calling
upon tradition, calling the dogs for an evening stroll
down yet another steep hill. In stillness, I saw the water moving
sideways, blinding. When night falls, fireworks will start below.
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Here Come the Girls
When Christmas is coming, I think
of the standing in the karaoke bar
that used to serve free drinks
if you showed up in lingerie
(until the street kids found out
and flooded it in their crusty undies)
the bartender had explained, apologizing
me and my friends thirsty
in our lace so we walked down
the mild night to the Yellow Moon
where Zach met us with Ernie K. Doe
on the jukebox, wearing only
a Christmas stocking and his alligator shoes.
At some point, after shots of bottom shelf
bourbon, he helicoptered—dangerous—
and we danced until the room was warm
enough to bear what had already been
bared: our skin, our hunger,
the gifts of our wanting,
and a few days later, on Christmas morning,
the bartender plugged in my waffle iron
above that same jukebox
which made us chosen family
and a neighbor brought cane syrup straight
from Youngsville, and a neighbor brought sweet oranges
from his grandmother’s tree and a neighbor
brought Coquito, a family recipe
and we fed each other, ourselves,
making a home away from home,
making kin with open mouths
and full plates, wet shot glasses stacked
beside the service well and fairy
lights blinking in rhythm with the song.
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Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter and co-editor of Fiolet & Wing. Winner of a PEN America grant, her work is in Best New Poets, Mississippi Review, & Pleiades, among others. She holds a PhD from the University of Mississippi, Oxford & teaches creative writing online at The Poetry Barn. She lives and writes in New Orleans.
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