Spitfire
They all want to know about that famous
Southern women’s charm, cold iced-tea
and pastel sundresses, slow time and living
high on a dime, but it ain’t that kind of charm
kept us strong…it’s more like this—
beaming a grin after you’ve been shunted
to the floor, grinding an ax after your
husband kicks the bucket, turning
a potato into candy, knowing when to bawl
and when to hold back a world of eye-
brine for the sake of your daughters.
**
Southern Grace
Close to my sins,
I’ve been falling for a long
time, Granny, and the phone seems so far away
when you’re evil and don’t believe in that kind of hell,
but it’s my will, you see, that lives above and
below everything it sees, but none of it wastes,
because it’s the Southern grace, the widest
smile, our secret dreams…
Your Southern eyes are stranger, more
beautiful than any room or color,
and after all, you know where I come from,
closer than them all…
I sat alone, got over myself,
and wrote this to you,
commotions are just another life
melting inside my belly scars,
and besides, John said—
the one from the Bible—to live above
hell, and I know you know
Southern grace is just the art of meaning
what someone else says.
