Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rocky Mount, NC, home to Melton’s Barbeque and the Tar River. One Saturday, my family took the ski boat out on the Tar River, but never again. When you swam in the Tar, which you were forbidden to do, you had to hurry back into the house and shower before your mother could smell the river’s breath in your hair. I was born in Park View Hospital which had a front porch with rockers, a welcoming place. It stood across from the Braswell Library where Jack Kerouac had a library card; he was not Southern in the least. But he loved to meditate beneath the pines of Little Easonberg seeking refuge from the road. Across from the library was the first ever Hardee’s which might have helped Rocky Mount onto the road of prosperity but didn’t. The town was divided into two counties, Nash and Edgecombe, each bordered by the railroad that wound through downtown. Stand on one side of the track and you were in Nash, the other, in Edgecombe. My great granddaddy was murdered in Nash County mistaken for Robert Ricks, owner of Ricks Hotel and a rich man. My great grandmother’s hair turned white that day. I wish I knew more, I wish I had listened more, but these are some inklings of my Southerness.
Three Poems
I.
Black Irish
My great aunts
live ditch bound in the county,
outbuildings sagging,
a neon Budweiser sign
always lit. Plump
and round faced,
we share pocked olive skin,
dark green eyes, black hair
thick and unruly.
I like their whistling kettle
and the tea cakes,
the clutter, their chatter,
the sofa on the porch,
the jokes that make no sense
but keep my mother laughing.
I admire my aunts most
for their birdhouses,
dangling white gourds,
twirling above forlorn fields,
empty globes
six in a row,
angled against the sky,
an incantation,
their gleaming poles so tall
I nearly fall back in worship,
totems of a sort,
livelier than any cross,
eyeless, their round mouths
wordless, calling.
II.
The Second Coming
In my grandmother’s house,
Jesus showed up in unusual places.
In the hall, he kindly held a thermometer.
With wavy brown hair, blue eyes shining,
he peered down from the calendar
as my grandmother
scratched away each day.
In the kitchen, a Jesus postcard,
(Wish you were here),
prayed over stacked crates of Dr. Pepper,
one hundred and forty four bottles
unopened, crusted in dust.
As grandma told it, that Dr. Pepper man
came out of nowhere,
stepped right up on the porch
and shook her hand.
He had said he would give her a silver dollar,
right then and there
for every single bottle she had.
To her dismay and embarrassment,
she did not have a single one.
You would beg all day in her house
and not even Jesus
could give you a sip.
III.
My Oldest Sister Gets Married
We load up the station wagon
with my sister’s suitcases,
boxes and bags
and carry her down
to a women’s college.
She will return home
in less than a year, 1969,
expelled, her pregnancy
revealed by spring clothes.
It was, what I learned later,
a shot-gun wedding,
in a town across the state line.
Her beau tried to buy time,
he had a broken foot,
my father handed him his crutches.
In the chapel with linoleum tiles,
folding chairs and fluorescent light,
I toss my rice from home.
A man in a dark suit,
wagging his finger
darts to my side,
pointing to translucent grains
trapped in the narrow grooves
of a black plastic runner that leads
from sliding glass doors
to marriage.
