September Notebook

Abstract

September Notebook Nicole Cooley (bio) Like the magic porridge that takes over the town, pours through the village, fills then empties the streets— — It swallows everything in September and it happens twice — First, in New York the burning seeped under our apartment door, into the window seams. First, the sharp smell threaded through my daughter's hair for days. I pressed my lips to her head. — Four years later in New Orleans water surges over, under, wrenches houses off stone foundations. The floodwall cracks, an explosion of gunfire. Water surges around my parents' house. — [End Page 1035] I read that story to my daughter because — once upon a time there were two Septembers in two cities: the one of the towers on fire and the one of the floodwaters rising. — Someone else is reading me the story. I crawl up on her lap but she says: Don't shut your eyes just because you can't watchTV footage: the jumping couples from windows of Tower One, the families, attics split open, in the Lower Nine, waiting for rescue. — Once upon a time it was the end of August and the daughter was on the phone with her parents begging them to leave the city. Fast forward to the parents' repeated answer: this is our home. The woman begging her parents to go to the superdome. To the mother saying: you are sending us to a watery grave. — Today's American History Lesson, the voice says: Once upon a time in 1927 white men blew up the Industrial canal. With a loud crack, they breached the levees. They wanted to drive the black families out. — So when my daughter's class gathers at the flagpole for a "patriotic song" "in commemoration" of "the event"— the sky is a pure blue bowl capable of holding nothing. — [End Page 1036] Here is the weather, the voice says, New York's bright sky in both Septembers. Now a clear early fall day will always be 9/11 weather. — When the peasants run and the porridge blankets the streets who will save any of them? — My mother says, this is our home. — Today's History Lesson: It swallows and swallows and swallows — I'd like to sit with her, Our Lady of the Breach. Our Lady of the Burning City. Our Lady of Uncomfort. I'd like to hold her hands down and whisper the lesson. I'd like to force the floodwaters down her throat. Nicole Cooley Nicole Cooley, an associate professor of English and creative writing at Queens College, CUNY, is author of two volumes of poems, Resurrection and The Afflicted Girls; and a novel, Judy Garland, Ginger Love. This New Orleans native lives in New Jersey, where she is at work on a new book, Evacuation. Copyright © 2006 Charles H. Rowell