Ode on my Coaster from the French Quarter Hotel Monteleone

Just now I am looking online at the Eudora Welty suite. 

I relive "The Purple Hat" as testament to my proclivity 

for film noir counter to my veneer of civility, 

all very premature, I assure you. My two friends gave me

this coaster, protector of surfaces. Long live 

the facsimile of same by way of tough cardboard 

filled-in circle beige and faded showing spots 

of dried breakfast tea. I miss my two generous friends 

who shared New Orleans in the days when 

my hair was dark and plush, and my main focus was 

Ignatius J. Reilly, his mother Irene, 

Officer Mancuso, Myrna Minkoff, and Miss Trixie, 

none quite fictional in the humid tree-lined bounty of a city 

with frail infrastructure and rusting wrought iron.