A flat tire introduced me
to the sirens and their mother.
Before I knew Terpsichore
as a muse or the mother of sirens,
I knew her as a street, relatively
residential, nineteenth century
homes, called shotgun houses,
stringing each room in succession,
front to back, because properties
were taxed on width, not depth.
Imagine a street of homes,
sometimes duplexes, with
living room-bedroom-bathroom-
bedroom-dining room-kitchen-
back porch, a long house shaped
the like barrel of a shotgun.
Terpsichore had sister streets, all
comprising the Faubourg Lafayette
and Lower Garden District of
the Big Easy. You walked streets
named Erato, Calliope, Clio,
Thalia, Melpomene, Euterpe,
Polymnia, and Urania, and
Terpsichore (of course),collectively
issuing their siren calls to come
home. My personal favorite was
Erato, named for the poetry muse,
because I had a flat tire in a station
wagon on the interstate right
at the St. Charles Avenue exit,
and I guided our car full of teenagers
bound for the French Quarter down
the exit ramp, carefully, parking
on a street named Erato. I fixed
the flat, not knowing that decades
later, that Erato and her mother
Terpsichore would remind me
of a flat tire.
Tweetspeak Poetry has a prompt this week, involving the muses and their siren songs.
Photograph: A shotgun duplex on Terpsichore Street in New Orleans.
