My neighbor Shirley stopped by before going to work, selling shrimp in a stand on the side of the road, a business which wasn't doing too well because of  that gulf oil spill.

    "Oh Delia,  this man," Shirley said, "who bought some shrimp from me last week stopped by to complain."

     "Dat mess o' shrimp you sol' me the other day taste the oil!"

    "I'm sorry you had to throw it all out sir."

     "Mais no, I didn't throw it away, I ate it…

     "I like when the poem goes, 'In  Brueghel's Icarus, for instance:  how everything turns away,'"I read to my grandmother.

    "'Musee des Beaux Arts'-- sounds nice," she said, "like Paris," but I didn't say, "Ma Ma, that's in Brussels."

     I slid the book across the sheets closer to her so she could see the painting and read on, the noxious odor of battle between urine and industrial cleaner stinging my eyes:  ". . .  . white legs disappearing into the…

        When we were told to evacuate our town because of the predicted floodwaters, I asked Miss Shelda, who must have lived here forever, if she remembered any other floods in the area.

     "It's funny how I don't remember when they opened the spillway in '73, but I do remember the flood of '27.  I was just a li'l thing then, but I remember sitting on the roof of Miss Melancon's house where Mama worked.  We were just looking out at that muddy water waiting for the boat, and that's…

     Maudie knew she would have to pick the blackberries now that Mama had slipped on the mop water she threw

on the porch steps and busted up her ankle.   Mama wanted her to take little  Taylor with her,   the 8-year-old

Maudie sometimes babysat, and to her,  he never seemed to stop talking.  Sure enough, he chattered all the way to

the old house which scared Maudie, but that 's where the best blackberries grew, as big a man's thumbnail, so

plump and purple they…