there is a piece of me
that belongs to the south,
in virginia.
wherein my heart is chocked full of
warm cinnamon apples
and biscuits and gravy,
for breakfast,
cornbread at dinner,
peppermint puffs in-between meals,
a constant in this house
heated by a wood fire stove,
skirted with a wrap-around porch,
home to food bowls
for stray cats.
i want rolling land,
fruit trees,
farm animals,
the feeling that
Glen Campell’s Southern Nights
was written for me.
but there is no me in
churches every few miles,
shopping centers miles away.
no me in military academies,
in mud-covered pickup trucks,
in MISSION BBQs.
i want the south,
but it does not want me,
as me.