Jean Started Mississippi

Jean started Mississippi
because he wanted to remember
all the things the girl told him
in the dream last night.
She was sent to tell him how to start writing again.
She told him how "Jean started Mississippi" was a starter poem
and Jean saw this place, somewhat reminiscent of New Orleans
although Jean had never been to New Orleans
and that boys ther rode skate boards down along the walls, jumping
into basketball games with young black boys
and that this was a strange wonderful place, a place where
five people who weren't supposed to be there, perhaps they were ghosts,
were following you in a car that made your skin cold
and suddently you were awake and two fans on high
were blowing cold air on you on the courch…
Jean wanted to remember… he wanted to go back
to that strange girl who seemed to want Jean to write again,
to go back to that strange book she had with those "starter poems"
like "Jean started Mississippi" so he could start again, keep writing
and never stop, that strange place where the young boys rode on skateboards sideways
riding down walls high enough that you wondered if the boys could jump off
without getting killed, but they did, they could jump off those walls
and join that group of black boys playing basketball, and of those white boys
on the skateboard, and who was that mysterious white girl from down South,
pretty but you couldn't really make out her face, and did she have dirty blonde hair
and was she was some pretty young white girl from New Orleans
who you wanted to hang out with, perhaps be her lover some day, and why was she
trying to get you to write all over again? And who was that other older white boy
on the skateboard sitting next to her, talking to you, telling you how important it was
to write again, why did they both want me to start writing with the words, "Jean started Mississippi…"?
is

Jean Jones received his MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and has had a book published by St Andrews Press out of St Andrews College in Laurinburg, North Carolina entitled Birds of Djakarta. He currently teaches English as a Second Language in the Basic Skills Department of Cape Fear Community College, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Find more by Jean Jones in the Author Index.

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