Listening at the Monteleone

In the last year of her young

life a strikingly beautiful

woman finds herself in the old

Hotel Monteleone, perusing a

guide to the port city downriver

from her native Minneapolis,

on a journey unaccompanied ex-

cept by her hostess, a friend

of the family. She is ill, but

her inscription in the endpa-

pers is firm, and continental.

Her name is Dorothea; her father

was a young teacher at Heidel-

berg, her mother, surviving far
beyond her, was of the third gen-
eration of the territory's first 

fortunes. Family legend had it

that he died of consumption in

Paris, on the young couple's

honeymoon. Now, I reason this

out, more probably: there may

well have been no marriage, as

her conception took place, de-

spite all precaution. Her father
may well not have died. Yet she

became beautiful, even accept-

ing her position in society; 

then, redeeming the cherished, 
missing father, entered into

a second marriage, to a boys' 

school teacher. If I do hold
her in my mind, it's not for
having met her. It's for be-
ing left my eyes.

'Old New Orleans' has been

compiled chiefly from an-

cient notarial acts, in ev-

ery case the history of each

old home has been searched

through these conveyance rec-

ords to establish original 

ownership and the year of ac-

tual building. Therefore, if

blame for blasted tradition

is to be attached to anyone

it should be placed on the

shoulders of the notaries of

a century or more ago who set

down in their sear and yellowed

files the actual transactions ..

  To steal a glance and, anxious, see

  Him slipping into transparency -

  The feathered helmet already in place,

  Its shadow fallen across his face

  (His hooded sex its counterpart) -

  Unsteadies the routines of the heart.

  If I reach out and touch his wing,

  What harm, what help might he then bring?

  But suddenly he disappears,

  As so much else has down the years ...

  Until I feel him deep inside

  The emptiness, preoccupied.

  His nerve electrifies the air.

  His message is his being there.

Stanley Clisby Arthur

Old New Orleans:

  A History of the Vieux Carré,

  Its Ancient and Historical Buildings

Harmanson, 1936©

J.D. McClatchy

Mercury Rising

  Mercury Dressing

Knopf, 2011©