Of Time & the River

Of Time & the River
by John Bennett
My granddaughter
pulls into
New Orleans
in a
gypsy van
with a
three-legged
dog & a
pot stash &
stands on
the banks of
the Mississippi
smoking a
a cigarette
off Decatur
down by
Café du
Monde
at sunrise
where
forty years
earlier I
& a
small boy
young enough
to be
her son but
was her
father skipped
stones across
the river.