aayoungi find myself longing
to live inside
a sepia toned lithograph
from the civil war
.
you’d be shipped to the mysterious
far off north
while i embalmed bodies
along side Thomas Holmes
my apron covered with
the sins of man
on blood soaked battlefields of the south
.
after a thousand letters written
and lessons learned
you’d come back home to me
with half yourself blown off
so i would decide
as a good woman does
to love you
all the more
.
the moment i first laid eyes on him
i knew i was in love
and that one day
he would try to kill me
but i’m southern as fuck
so i stuck along for the ride
having been born into a family of baptists
i was taught catholics would burn in hell
even at a young age
that
seemed
a bit extreme
over nothing but a change of venue
and i had no means of understanding
those who took a vow of celibacy
in a southern baptist church
the preacher and the deacons
were who the women flirted with
to me
remembering the sabbath day
is
church attendance boards
tithing totals
fried chicken
pussy
and gossip socials
if your derby hat was on fire
i would douse it
with kerosene
y’all
can keep
your doctors
hot yoga
chemical pills
power walks passed power plants
designer greecian yogurts
seaweed slurping hipster assholes
forgotten manners
and cast iron statues of sigmund freud’s cock
no, sir
i’ll take this bourbon
these biscuits
bacon apples grits n’ gravy
and a ride on my horse
to see what my wise old red injun granddaddy
is keepin’
in his smoking pouch
because i’m not afraid to die
of being southern
we have a saying down here
bless your heart
but what it translates to
is a smiling
go fuck yourself
mausoleum chambers
fill my mother’s house
the lavender room
with grandmother luvenia’s bed
and soft pink crystal light fixture from the old house on fishing creek
is where the spaw and bates families are entombed
the bed spread woven from funeral ribbons and loss
cherry framed antique portraiture
hang as illuminated death masks of my ancestors
behind the old convex glass
shoe leather faces
whip stitched lines
and battle scars
their backs curved
from bending to god’s will
their great depression was their existence
i look into the women’s changed eyes
who lost children
they had faded to a barely living shade of gray
known only to battlefields
and beds sickened with scarlet fever
country life is a sort more merciless than most
particularly to the feminine persuasion
mother swears the cicadas were screaming in the june apple trees
that pot steam august day meant for sewing bicentennial dresses
the day aunt lena jumped in the well
i often walked by the sealed haunted thing as a little girl
lungs filling with fear
wondering why that day
she chose to turn potable water into tears
was it the four year old daughter
named venus
born and died in the month of april
buried beside the church
had the clocks her late husband made wound her tightly enough to do it
or was it simply senility
i’ll never know
when had she stopped hearing the piano music
what had she suffered
that an abyss seemed somehow more comforting
than another day lost in the valley of stones
i close the memory of her with a crystal doorknob
cousin leland went into the well after the body
but her soul
never resurfaced