Southern Legitimacy Statement: The simple fact of being a South Carolinian is enough to qualify me as southern, but i feel my inner southerner is a result of being a Barnet woman. A Barnet woman will rip a person to shreds with a wink and a smile. Barnet women are stubborn and feisty. She’s the type of woman to be the first woman in her hometown to get paid to do a man’s job. A Barnet woman can survive the apocalypse and bake the best lemon pie. Even though my culinary creations are scary, i can rip a door of the hinges and throw it mighty far. The Griffin side of my family is full of rebels too. Our roots go back to general Lee. James Ambler Griffin fought in the Civil War. My grandfather’s life might’ve been very differnet if he’d never beaten up the Rector boys.
Telephone Line
Granny sat in front of the switchboard
For many years she took
cautious glances over her shoulder.
while she listened to stories
about secrets affairs, Klan meetings,
and numerous betrayals.
Decades later she remembered
the day she retired
and showed her granddaughter
the old telephone building on Main Street.
But she can no longer remember
her granddaughters, and sometimes
forgets her daughter’s name.
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren
visit the nursing home.
She asks for Mama and wants to know
if the children are still at church.
Her children gather around the bed
She cannot hear them through the static.
But after a temporary loss of connection
the voices finally get through.
It’s okay to go.
Eventually she will answer
and welcome them home.
